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EDITED BY

SIR WILLIAM WILSON HUNTER, K.C.S.I., CLE.

M.A. (Oxford) : LL.D. (Cambridge)

LORD CORNWALLIS

Xon^on
HENRY FROWDE

m-smi^

Oxford Univeksity Press Warehouse
Amen Corner, E.G.

X*-V««(^' *#•■ '•

I •» « »kv I h« <^«» «jf<»«i.^r* •*• *w-

•■4; *-**^t « . • *■«

RULERS OF INDIA

li^^^l

XTbe Marquess Cotnwallls

By W.'^'^TON-KARR, Esq. "

FORMERLY A PUISNE JUDGE OF THE HIGH COURT OF CALCUTTA

AND SOMETIME SECRETARY TO THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

IN THE FOREIGN DEPARTMENT

(jy'M^ArdLA^Cc^

Oxford

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS: 1890

Oxford

PRINTED At THE CLARENDON PRESS

BY HORACE HART. PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

■9V7i^Hag

S^^^BW

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGES

I. Eably Life and American Campaign . . 7-18

II. Political Condition of India. The Revenue

Settlement 19-59

III. Pbinciples and Results 60-73

IV. Reform of the Civil Service .... 74-100
V. Private Life. Social Life in India . . 1 01 -11 8

VI. Perpetual Settlement of Benares. . . 1 19-137

VII. Madras. Bengal: Sale Laws and Resump-
tions 138-156

VIII. Mission to the Continent. Indian Corre-
spondence 157-169

IX. The Peace of Amiens 170-177

X. Return to India. Policy. Death. . 178-197

Appendix ..." 199-200

Index 201-203

'i
^

NOTE

The orthography of proper names follows the system adopted by the
Indian Government for the Imperial Gazetteer of India, That system,
while adhering to the popular spelling of very well-known places, snch
as Punjab, Lucknow, etc., employs in all other cases the vowels with
the following uniform sounds : —

c?, as in woman : d, as in fathers : t, as in police : /, as in intrigue :
o, as in cold : «, as in bull : H, as in stcre : e, as in grey.

LORD CORNWALLIS

-M-

CHAPTER I
Eably Life and Amebican Campaign

The family of Comwallis, Mr. Ross says with
truth, was of some importance in Ireland, as is shown
by the family papers. The first of whom we hear
anything positive in England was Thomas Com-
wallis, who became Sheriff of London in 1378. He
acquired property in Suffolk, and his son and grand-
son represented that county in Parliament. One of
his successors helped to suppress the insurrection of
Wyatt, and was rewarded by the office of Treasurer
of the Household. The grandson of the Treasurer
was created a baronet by Charles I, supported the
Royal cause, and followed Charles H to the Continent.
After the Restoration, Sir Frederick became Baron
Cornwallis in 1661. The third holder of this title is
known as havmg married Anne Scott, widow of
Monmouth and Duchess of Buccleugh. The fifth
baron, who was Chief Justice of Eyre south of Trent,

8 LORD CORNWALLIS

and Constable of the Tower, was created Earl Com-
wallis and Viscount Brome in June, 1753. His son,
bom December 31, 1738, is the subject of the present
memoir.

Charles, second Earl and first Marquess Comwallis,
was educated at Eton ; and, according to the custom
of the time, entered the army at the age of eighteen.
He was sent abroad in 1757 to acquire some techni-
cal knowledge, and joined the Military Academy at
Turin. Several amusing anecdotes of his life there are
given in letters from a Prussian officer. Captain De
Boguin, who appears to have accompanied the young
Englishman as a sort of travelling companion and
tutor. The discipline of the Academy seems to have
been fairly strict, and Lord Brome spent his time in
learning to dance and fence, studying the Geiman
language, and taking lessons in the riding school.
After leaving Turin he visited some of the German
courts, served on the staff of Lord Granby, and was
present at several actions on the Continent, including
the battle of Minden. In 1760 he entered Parliament
as member for Eye, but in less than t^vro years he
succeeded to the earldom, on the death of his father in
June, 176a.

Hitherto there had been nothing extraordinary in
the career of Earl Comwallis. He had benefitted by
a public school education. His mind had been opened
and his taste improved by foreign travel, and he had
seen some hard service at Minden, Labinau, and other

EARL Y LIFE 9

minor actions against the French. On his return
home he continued to pay attention to his military
duties and was stationed with his regiment at Dublin,
Derby, Gloucester, and Gibraltar. In July, 1768, he
married Jemima, daughter of Colonel Jones of the
third regiment of Foot Guards. He seems to have
been constantly in his place in the House of Peers,
and to have voted usually with Lord Shelbume, who
eventually became the first Lord Lansdowne, and
with Earl Temple. It is significant that notwith-
standing the political opinions of his predecessors he
was steadily opposed to the scheme for taxing the
American colonists, and though he held divers Minis-
terial appointments he voted against the Ministry of
the day on more than one occasion. In 1770 he was
violently denounced by Junius, and by that venomous
writer was credited with the intention of 'retiring
into voluntary banishment in the hope of recovering
some of his reputation.'

This attack rests on no more basis of truth than
many of the accusations of Junius. But so far from
retiring from public life into social exile, it was the
fate of Comwallis from this date to take a decided
and prominent part in most important events in
America, in India, in Ireland, and on the Continent.
Practically, his public career may be divided into
four portions. He commanded a division of Royal
troops and saw much service in the American War
of Independence. He was Governor-General and

lo LORD CORNWALLIS

Commander-in-Chief in India — ^first from September,
1 786, to October, 1 793, and again from July to October,
1805. He was Lord-Lieutenant and Commander-in-
Chief in Ireland for nearly three years — between June,
1798 and May, 1801. He negotiated the Peace of
Amiens.

It will be the object of this memoir to describe the
aims, motives, and character of Lord Comwallis as an
Indian Ruler, and to notice the historical events with
which he was connected only so far as may be neces-
sary for the comprehension of his character Average
English readers must be credited with a fair know-
ledge of the struggle which led to the loss of our
American colonies, with the condition of Ireland at
the beginning of the present century, and with the
French war terminated by the short Peace of Amiens.
Similarly, in treating of the Indian administration
there will be no detailed account of the two successive
campaigns waged against Tipti Sult^. But to the
important measures of reform in India introduced by
Lord Comwallis a considerable space will be accorded.
And, generally speaking, no facts or anecdotes will be
omitted which tend to assign to this statesman his
due place in history, whether as a soldier or a civil
administrator.

Comwallis^ who by this time had attained the rank
of Lieutenant-General, was directed to take command
of a division of the English army in America at the
beginning of 1776. He had opposed the Ministry

AMERICAN CAMPAIGN IT

and regretted the contest, but under a sense of military
duty he accepted the post. Two years afterwards we
find Him in England. He returned to America in
April, 1778, but again came home and threw up his
conmiand ; not from any conviction of the injustice of
the war, but owing to the illness of Lady Comwallis,
who pined in the absence of her husband and died at
Culford, the family place, on February 14, 1779.

This sad event decided him to return to active
service, and he was again employed in America till
his surrender at York Town. The late Sir John
Kaye holds the opinion that our success in America
had become hopeless even before the first arrival of
Comwallis. And the prospect became still darker
when the chief command was entrusted to Sir Henry
Clinton in succession to Sir William Howe. According
to the late Lord Stanhope, we should not have laid
the foundations of our Empire in Bengal but for
Clive, and the historian adds that had Clive Uved
we might not have lost our American colonies ; or at
least their independence would have been attained in
some other way. While it is almost needless to state
that in America we had no heaven-bom general on
our side, it is fair to add that Comwallis met and
fairly defeated the colonists on at least three occasions.

When the English forces had evacuated Phila-
delphia with some loss of stores and more loss of
honour, Comwallis, in his first campaign, repulsed the
Americans who were closing round his rear with no

I a LORD CORNWALLIS

inconsiderable loss. At the siege of Charleston he
actually as a volunteer formed one of the storming
party, and if it be objected that a general officer had
no business to place himself in such a position, his
example was followed by Sir James Outram in the
Indian Mutiny, who charged with the Volunteer
Cavalry at the relief of Lucknow and actually resigned
the command to General Havelock. On August 18,
1780, by a rapid march from Charleston to Camden
and Bugeley Mills, he totally defeated the army of
General Gates. In a letter to an officer he says:
'Above I OCX) were killed and wounded and about
800 taken prisoners. We are in possession of eight
pieces of brass cannon, all they had in the field, all
their ammunition-waggons, a great number of arms,
and 130 baggage- waggons : in short, there never was
a more complete victory.' Unfortunately, as has been
remarked by more than one writer, these temporary
successes were never properly followed up. Our
movements were hindered by want of transport and
by a defective commissariat ; and the British army,
though numerically superior to its adversaries, was
never strong in discipline or w/yrcde. Moreover, while
Comwallis was successful, detachments under other
officers were defeated by the colonists. The Royalists
and their levies of militia became dispirited and dis-
heartened by a series of small failures, and although
the campaign of 1780 was on the whole favourable to
the Royal cause, Colonel Tarleton suffered a defeat at

AMERICAN CAMPAIGN ' 13

Cowpens, which has been described as the most serious
calamity after the surrender of Saratoga. What could
be done to repair this defeat was done by Comwallis.

At Guildford he attacked General Greene, who com-
manded a force of nearly 6000 men, and on March 15,
1 781, he routed this officer and captured his cannon.
But here again want of supplies^ the general dis-
affection of the country, and the failure of energy on
the part of the Loyalists, crippled operations^, and
although this action is admitted by the American
writers to have been a ' signal instance of the steadi-
ness of British troops when well commanded,' and
though one English annalist compares it to Cressy,
Poitiers, and Agincourt, it was only an apparent
triumph ; and indeed it may be said to have inflicted
more damage on the English than on the Americans.

Comwallis, who had been wounded in the battle of
Guildford, next marched through North Carolina into
Virginia, and took up his position at York and
Gloucester, on the York River. It is not easy to
apportion the blame for the surrender of York Town.
The Commander-in-Chief subsequently endeavoured
to show that he had not thought favourably of Com-
wallis's march into the Virginian provinces. But it
is quite clear that he ordered Comwallis to act on
the defensive and to fortify himself in some suitable
position. Comwallis had also some hope of relief or
assistance from the British fleet. But nothing was
done with vigour and effect. And when the American

14 LORD CORNWALUS

and French armies^ strong in men and material,
artillery and engineers, closed round the English
forces, nothing was left for the Commander but to
surrender his post or to try and cut his way out
through the enemy. When the latter alternative
had been tried in vain, the surrender of an ex-
hausted garrison and crumbling works naturally
followed.

This event practically put an end to the contest.
Comwallis remained a prisoner of war for about
three months and was allowed to leave on parole for
England. It is pleasant to note that in his letters he
mentions with gratitude and good-feeling the delicacy
and courtesy shown to him and others by the French
officers. Eventually, after a long and troublesome
correspondence about his exchange with Colonel
Laurens, an American prisoner of high rank, he was
released from his parole at the beginning of 1783.

Without analysing the numerous pamphlets and
letters in which the responsibility for our failure was
long and acrimoniously discussed, it is quite possible
to form an estimate of the merits of Comwallis as a
military man and a strategist. That he did not
possess the quick perception and the rapid glances
which distinguish great captains in the field, may be
readily admitted. But there is every reason to think
that under a first-rate commander, Comwallis at the
head of a division, or despatched to carry out some
distinct combination, or to operate in a particular

AMERICAN CAMPAIGN 15

quarter with adequate support, might have won no
inconsiderable military distinction.

He had been well trained ; he was a good discipli-
narian ; he knew when and how to be severe, and he
had formed some distinct idea of carrying on a cam-
paign. Sir H. Clinton showed his incapacity by
recommending desultory measures as a means of
reducing the enemy. Comwallis tells us that he was
quite tired of ' marching about the country in quest
of adventures.' He informs his Commander-in-Chief
that the right maxim for the safe and honourable
conduct of the war was 'to have as few posts as
possible, and that wherever the King's troops are, they
should be in respectable force.' He was in favour of
oflFensive operations in Virginia only. He did not
foresee the least advantage from destroying goods and
property at Philadelphia. He thought it absurd to
attempt to turn an unhealthy swamp into a defensive
post, which could at once be taken by an enemy with
a temporary superiority at sea. In fact, he was for
concentrating his eflForts on operations in a province
where a decisive victory would mean the defeat of his
opponents ; and at one time before the surrender of
York Town we had firm possession of four important
provinces, while another state, Vermont, had shown a
desire for union with Canada. Our Loyalists had not
then lost all heart, and the * Americans were reduced
to great straits for both money and supplies.'

In a very few years, however, the talents and

i6 LORD CORNWALUS

experience of Comwallis were to find scope for their
action in a very different sphere, where he would not
be hampered by the incapacity of a superior, and
where what Gibbon terms the seals and the standard,
or the civil and military power, would be vested in the
same person. We have it on his own authority that
Lord Shelburne in May, 178a, proposed to him ' to go
to India as Governor-General and Commander-in-
Chief/ It is clear from this, that notwithstanding the
disaster of York Town, Comwallis still possessed
the confidence of statesmen high in office, and was
thought fitted for important trusts. Yet about the
same time we find him complaining that he had been
treated very unfairly by the King and Mr. Pitt, and
that these two great personages had agreed to expose
him to the world ^as an object of contempt and
ridicule.'

It seems from the correspondence that negotiations
with a view to engage Comwallis in the Admini-
stration were not very delicately and judiciously
managed. It is curious too that Comwallis, when
turning over the suggestion of India in his mind,
should have come to the conclusion that it offered
no field for military reputation. Possibly the re-
collection of failures in America may have warped
his judgment, and the recent defeat and capture of our
officers by Haidar All may have obliterated the
memories of Pla«sey and Baxfir.

Comwallis writes thus to Colonel Ross in anticipa-

THE GOVERNOR-GENERALSHIP 17

tions which happily were not fulfilled. He does not
feel inclined 'to abandon my children and every
comfort on this side the grave, to quarrel with the
Supreme Government in India, whatever it may be :
to find that I have neither power to model the army
nor to correct abuses ; and finally, to run the risk of
being beaten by some Nabob and disgraced to all
eternity.' Comwallis may have been thinking of the
wearisome disputes between Hastings and Francis,
and the support withheld by other members of the
Council from the Governor-General.

In June, 1784, there came a distinct intimation that
the Ministers intended to offer him the two posts of
Governor- General and Commander-in-Chief, and in
February, 1785, he was * attacked,' as he phrases it, to
take the Governor-Generalship. To this proposal,
after a consideration of twenty-four hours, he gave a
' civil negative.* This it might be thought would,
have precluded any renewal of similar negotiations,
and during the next year Comwallis was much taken
up with the claims to compensation preferred by the
American loyalists, and by the proceedings of a Board
or Special Commission for the fortification of our sea-
ports, of which, with other distinguished naval and
military officers, he was made a member. In the
same year he was deputed to Berlin to attend a
review of the Prussian army, and was received there
with some civility by Frederic the Great, though it is
expressly mentioned in a letter to Colonel Boss that

1 8 LORD CORNIVALLIS

the king showed a maxked preference for La Fayette-
A conversation between the king and the English
General, recorded in the ComwaUis Correspondence^
is very curious as showing Frederic's view of the
political relations of continental states with each
other and with England.

In the beginning of 1786, from some cause not
clearly explained in Comwallis's Life and Letters, the
offer of India was again made, and with grief of
heart, as he puts it, Cornwallis accepted the appoint-
ment, sailed in May, and landed in Calcutta in
September of the same year. A Bill, on lines which
he had himself approved or suggested, enlarging the
powers of the Governor-General imder the India Bill
of 1783, and very properly giving him authority to
act on emergencies without the concurrence of his
Council, and even in opposition to that body, received
the Eoyal assent after his departure for the East.

CHAPTER U

Political Condition op India. The Revenue

Settlement

A SHOBT summary of the condition of British India
at that time may not be deemed superfluous for the
complete understanding of the powers, responsibilities,
and policy of the new Governor-General.

We had acquired and had begun in a fashion to
administer the fine provinces of Bengal and Behar
with a portion of Orissa. The six great Mardth&
houses with large territories and disciplined forces
were still independent. Muhammadan Viceroys ruled
over vast tracts of country at Lucknow and at
Haidar&b&d. There were other lesser Naw^bs of the
Eamatic and of Farukhdb&d, and R&j&s at Travan-
core and Tanjore, who at any moment might require
support and countenance as allies, — ^if they did not
become troublesome as enemies. The Presidency of
Bombay was comprised within two islands, and some

was more extensive ; but over the greater portion of
India, dynasties, old and young, and potentates of
every degree of merit, demerit, and obscurity, still
held sway, and their representatives were ever ready

B 2

ao LORD CORNWALLIS

to appropriate to themselyes some share In a Mufi^hal
^^ which when .t ite highe.. had 1«W Ly

a century and a half^ and was now crumbling to
pieces.

Before dealing with any of the reforms in civil
administration carried out by Comwallis, it is as well
to state briefly the result of two campaigns waged
against our bitterest and most formidable opponent,
Tipti Sult&n, the son of Haidar All who had sup-
planted the old Hindu Bdjfis of Mysore and ruled at
Seringapatam. The war began under the auspices of
General Medows as Commander-in-Chief at Madras.
Tipti had made an unprovoked attack on our ally
the Bdjd. of Travancore, and it was the object of the
General, in alliance with the Niz&m and the Peshwd.,
to bring the Sult&n to account. But it soon appeared
that Medows, though a brave, experienced, and chival-
rous officer, had not the strategic qualities which, in
a difficult country and against a watchful and wary
enemy, were sufficient to ensure success. To add to
this, our army was badly equipped and provisioned.
The Treasury was empty. The civil government of
Madras was incapable. At the close of the year 1790,
Comwallis, the Governor-General, made use of his
provisional powers and practically assumed command
of the army in the field.

It is creditable to Medows that he displayed no
resentment at his supersession, and that he con-
tinued to cany out the orders of Comwallis with

THE MYSORE CAMPAIGN %\

perfect cordiality and fidelity. In March, i79i>
Bangalore was stormed, and Tipti fell back on
Seringapatam. Comwallis followed. But when within
ten mUes of that city, although he had met and dis-
persed the enemy in the field, he found himself unable
to follow up his advantage from want of guns and
material, and was compelled to return to Bangalore.

The disastrous events of this retreat are well known
and have been described by historians. Tipii managed
to obtain swiffc intelligence of all our proceedings,
while our knowledge of his movements was almost a
blank. Our battery train had to be buried. The heavy
baggage was abandoned, and the sick and wounded
had to be transported on horses borrowed from the
native cavalry. Little or nothing was effected in the
course of the same year, and Comwallis wrote to his
son. Lord Brome, that he was growing old and rheu-
matic and had lost all spirit. He had hopes how- ,
ever of bringing Tipti to terms either by negotiation
or by an attack on his capital, and he did not think
of leaving Lidia before January, 1793. ^ ^^® same
time the Governor-General expressed his amazement,
in a letter to his brother the Bishop of Lichfield, that
any man of common sense could have ever imagined
that the war could be avoided. It was indeed, to use
his expression to Henry Dundas, ^ an absolute and
cruel necessity.' And it is not surprising to read that
the attack made by the Opposition in both Houses, on
the Mysore War, was not only a complete failure, but

22 LORD CORNWALUS

that it was really oonverted into a vote of approba-
tion.

Towards the doee of 1791 warlike operations were
resumed with some vigour. The fortress of Seven-
drcK^ or Savandr6g, described by Colonel Tnle as
' a remarkable doable-hiU fort in Mysore, standing on
a two-topped, bare, rock of granite,' and long thought
impregnable either by battery or escalade, was taken
in the end of September. The capture of three other
forts followed. The British Army had been reinforced.
The native merchants collected ample stores of grain,
and with the aid of a considerable army under the
son of the Niz&m and a small contingent of Ma-
rith&, Comwallis carried the fortified camp of the
enemy in a night attack in which he himself was
wounded, forced Tip& to evacuate all his posts to
the north of the river Cauvery, and was at last in a
position to lay siege to the town. The final over-
throw of the Muhammadan usurper was reserved
for a statesman who, gifted with remarkable energy
and foresight, found India in a better state of prepara-
tion, and was aided by officers and diplomatists of the
very first rank. But the termination of the two
campaigns of Comwallis is entitled to be termed a
real success.

The native allies who, it was afterwards ascer-
tained, had been in secret communication with Tipti,
were content to leave protracted negotiations for
peace in the hands of the English soldier and states-

THE MYSORE CAMPAIGN 23

man. Some territory was ceded to us. A consider-
able sum was exacted as a fine, and the two eldest
sons of Tipti were brought to the tent of the
Governor-General and delivered over to him as
hostages for the futiire. A well-knowli old print of
this imposing ceremony is still to be found in country
houses in England.

A link with the past history of Mysore was long
furnished by the third son of Tipti, Prince GhuMm
Muhammad, who, younger than his brothers the
hostages, survived down to our own times, — a loyal,
hospitable, and peaceful subject, residing in the neigh-
bourhood of Alipur, who on two separate occasions
paid a visit to England. Many Englishmen have a
pleasant recollection of the old Prince's hospitality ;
his entertainment of Viceroys at his residence ; and
his black horse with a long tail that swept the ground,
as he took his leisurely morning canter round the
race-course of Calcutta.

Some other incidents in the foreign policy of
Comwallis*s administration may be briefly noticed.
Sindhia was informed, through the Resident, Major
Palmer, that the Governor-General would be ready to
interpose with his good offices and advice, and to
adjust differences between Gwalior and the Vizir of
Gudh. But the Mar&th& ruler was warned at the
same time that any insult offered or injury done to
the Vizir or his subjects would be looked on as
offered to the subjects of the Company. Though the

24 LORD CORNWALLIS

time had not perhaps arrived for the open assertion
of our position as the Paramount Power in India, the
above language was suited to the occasion, and would
not have been unworthy of Wellesley himself.

The succession to the Bdj of Tanjore occupied a good
deal of attention. The Government at first supported
the claims of Amir Singh who was in possession. On
further consideration however, and especially on a letter
from the celebrated missionary Schwartz, this decision
was altered. Sarfiji, the adopted son of the deceased
Bdj&, was placed on the throne. Steps were taken to
induce the Naw&b of the Eamatic to liquidate his debts
and observe the stipulations of treaties ; but they had
not much effect, and the solution of this difficulty was
also reserved for Wellesley. Captain Eirkpatrick, a
very distinguished political officer, was dispatched on
a mission to Nepdl, where he was kindly received
by the Regent, uncle of the R&j&, in spite of the strong
opposition of a party of nobles who looked with sus-
picion on commercial treaties and European inter-
course. Indeed, owing to the extensive jealousy of
the kiog and the ministers of Nepdl in each succes-
sive generation, we have scarcely made any real
progress in what is termed the opening up of that
kingdom to British commercial enterprise since the
mission sent by Comwallis.

With the exception of the campaigns against Tipli,
the government of Comwallis may be said to have
been one of peace. The reduction of Pondicherry was

THE REVENUE SETTLEMENT 25

one of bis last acts, accomplished by a combined naval
and military force. After a few discharges from our
batteries the town capitulated. And this was of
course followed by the temporary cession of all the
other French settlements and factories in India.

It is now a pleasing taak, after this brief recapitula-
tion of the political and military events which Com-
wallis directed, or in which he took a prominent part,
to turn to the measures of internal reform which
entitle him to rank as one of those English states-
men who have based our supremacy in India on a
solid foundation, and have civilised, disciplined, and
improved vast provinces acquired either by conquest
or by cession. In reviewing these subjects the first place
will be given to the Settlement of the Land Revenue.
Under every respectable governmentj Hindu, Mu-
hammadan, or foreign, the adjustment of the Land
Tax has always been one of the primary objects to be
attained. The due exaction of the revenue or the
Land Tax has been considered the right of every de
facto government from time immemorial, whether this
power were exercised by a mighty monarch like
Asoka or Akbar over splendid provinces, or by some
petty Bdjd with a hill fort and a few square miles of
jungle streaked with cultivation. With the more
enlightened rulers, such as Akbar or Sher Sh&h, the
due assessment of the revenue and the equitable
division of the produce between the cultivator or the
village community and the superior landlord, has

26 LORD CORNWALLIS

always been a paramount duty. When we acquired the
Diw&nf of Bengal in 1 765^ our first object was to realise
the revenue by annual or quinquennial assessments.

Later acquisitions have impressed on our ad-
ministrators the necessity of fixing the Government
share of the produce on more definite principles, of
collecting it by easy processes, of ascertaining the
rights and interests of all classes firom the superior
landlord or tenant-proprietor down to the tenant-at-
will, and of stereotyping these rights by a permanent
and trustworthy record. It has been justly remarked
that until the Land Revenue has been fixed and the
Settlement concluded no other improvement should be
attempted, or, if attempted, would be likely to succeed.
It is vain to look for contentment and acquiescence
whether in a foreign or an indigenous rule, or to set
about any of those moral and material works which
denote progress and civilisation, until the mass of the
agriculturists know for certain in what proportions,
at what periods of the year, at what places, and under
what conditions or guarantees, they are to contribute
to the Exchequer that portion of the harvest which
they admit to be its due. No one in India, except
under a special grant of exemption from the ruling
power, has ever imagined that he could hold his Tdluk
or his allotment without paying something for it.

All these considerations were not so fully appre-
ciated by the servants of the East India Company
under Warren Hastings and Cornwallis as they

^PV

THE REVENUE SETTLEMENT 27

have been since. But even then the collection of
the revenue had been for twenty years the first and
chief care of the merchants and writers who found
themselves called from the desk and the counting-house
to preside at the local treasury and to replenish it
with contributions from a huge district. After the
second administration of Lord Clive we, of course,
began regularly to collect the share of the Govern-
ment, and in some sense to govern the country. At
first Englishmen were employed, and they soon felt
the need of native collectors and subordinates. Then
supervisors were appointed over the collectors. Next
came local Councils at Fatna, Dacca, and Murshiddb&d ;
and at last there was formed a Board of Revenue of
which the President of the Council, and ultimately Lord
Cornwallis as Governor-General, became a member.

The assessments were made for five years at one
period, and for one year at another. The Collectors
were paid by salaries and by commission, the former
moderate and the latter very large. Abuses pre-
vailed as much in the collection of the revenue due
to the Government as in the realisation of the rents
due to Zamind^rs. It was the object of Cornwallis
almost from the moment of his arrival, to enquire into
these abuses, to redress grievances, and to provide for
the contentment of the cultivating community, the
security of the Zaminddrs, and the interests of the
East Lidia Company, by one equitable and consistent
code and system. With this object the Governor-

ZS LOUD CORNWALLJS

General judiciotisly sought assistance from the men
best able to supply it. It would have been unreason-
able for Comwallis or for the historian of that period
to expect in Collectors suddenly placed over large
districts in Bengal, a minute, accurate, and diversified
acquaintance with tenures, village customs, rights, re-
sponsibilities, qualities of soils, and value of produce.

Still, it is not to be imagined that some of the
older Company's servants were destitute of all agri-
cultural and revenue knowledge. In Mr. Law and in
Mr. Brooke, the father of B^)^ Brooke of Borneo, the
Govemor-Qeneral found two highly qualified and
experienced officers. The celebrated Analysis of the
Finances of Bengal^ by Mr. James Grant, contains an
enormous mass of information, though the conclusions
are often unsound and the deductions untrustworthy.
But in Mr. Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth, the
Governor-General found a subordinate and a colleague
whose understanding of the revenue and rent
system of Bengal and Behar was accurate, extensive,
and profound. Shore's Minutes are copious, and one^
of June 1789, extends to ^6% paragraphs, and covers
nearly ninety pages of close print. No one could
have written it who had not completely mastered the
past history and present condition of the Province.

Many of Shore's observations, deductions, and rea-
sons ai*e as just and unimpeachable at this hour as
they were when written just a century ago. His
remarks on native character and proclivities are

THE REVENUE SETTLEMENT 29

pertinent at this very day. No one can pretend to
understand the origin of the Bengal Zamind&ri system
who has not carefully studied this text-book on the
subject. The diction is clear and perspicuous, in spite
of the inevitable introduction of local phrases and
terms; and in handsome language the Governor-
General more than once acknowledged his obligations
to the writer of these treatises, as they may fairly be
termed, though he differed £rom Shore on more than
one important point.

There has been, at various times, a good deal of
discussion amongst able Anglo-Indian experts as to
the precise position and rights of those whom in the
Lower Provinces we have termed Zamlnd&rs. It is the
opinion of some very competent authorities that these
Zamfnd&rs were originally of various kinds. Some-
times they were mere agents nominated for short
periods who had bid for the privilege of collecting
and paying the Government dues. A very notable
example of this class may be found in the IAve% of the
Lindsays. The Hon. Robert Lindsay, a servant of
the East India Company, finding that one Gangd
Govind, a native collector, was unequal to the collec-
tion of the revenue of the district of Sylhet, himself
came forward and tendered for the right to collect,
though he was opposed by the Council of Dificca. His
offer was accepted by Warren Hastings, and in this
way, aided by the monopoly of catching elephants and
supplying the h&z&xs of Calcutta with oranges and

30 LORD CORNWALUS

lime, he legitimately acquired a large fortune. In
those days such a proceeding was perfectly honour-
able and fair.

In other instauces the native tax-collector, em-
ployed at first by the Muhammadan Naw&b of Dacca
and Murshiddb&d, was enabled to hand over the same
privilege to his son or successor, and a^ the office thus
had a tendency to become hereditary, it was in theory
associated with vested rights. But it was often found
to be sound policy to entrust the collection of the
revenue to the representatives of the old landed aris-
tocracy of Bengal, and Shore particularly mentions
that at the time of the acquisition of the Provinces
of Bengal and Behar, one million of revenue was
contributed by the Zamind&rfs of the Bdj&s of
Bardwdn, B&jsh&hi, Din&pur, Nadiy^, Birbhiim, Bish-
nupur, and Jessor. To this day some of their re-
presentatives are in the enjoyment of fine estates.
Bardwdn is the largest and most flourishing, but
Nadiyd or Nuddea and Jessor are in the hands of
the descendants of Shore's Bdjds. By lUjsii&hf is
' meant Nattor, an estate now very much reduced in size
and wealth. The Zamfnddrs of Birbh^m and Bishnu-
pur are sunk almost to destitution, owing to mis-
management, the dishonesty of servants, litigation, and
general incapacity. In 1789 it was assumed that we
were to make the Settlement with the Zamind&rs, who
by descent, prescription, or privilege aud use, had been
in the habit of collecting rents from hunkds and

THE REVENUE SETTLEMENT 31

thousa«nds of cultivators, and accounting to Qovern-
ment for its proper share or revenue.

It has been asserted at several epochs that as Com-
wallis declared the Zaminddrs, with whom his Settle-
ment was made, to be the ' proprietors of the soil,' and
assured to them in his own language ' the possession
of their lands,' and the profits arising from the im-
provement thereof, he intended to vest, and did vest
them, with an absolute and exclusive right of owner-
ship as we understand that term in England. But
this is by no means the case. It is quite clear from
the language of his Minutes and Letters, as well as
from his legislation, that he only recognised in them a
limited and not an absolute proprietorship ; that he
clearly perceived and was prepared to protect the rights
and interests of other parties in the soil ; and that the
terms in which he speaks of Zamindars as proprietors
must be taken in the Oriental and not in the English
sense.

He could not practically override what for cen-
turies had been the common law of the country.
Sir George Campbell, who has the advantage of
familiarity with land tenures in the Punjab, in the
Upper Provinces, in Oudh, and in Bengal, pointed out
some years ago that land in India was a possession
in which two and more parties had very distinct,
separate, and permanent interests ; and that much of
the confused and erroneous language appUed to the
subject had arisen from overlooking and disregarding

32 LORD CORNWALLIS

this elementary fact. Those public servants who
either took part in the remediary legislation of 1859
or who, previous to that date, in administering the
revenue and the land laws of the Ijower Provinces,
endeavoured to see that the Ryot had fair play, and
who insisted on the limited rights of the Zamlnd&r,
may be certain that this latter view found favour with
John Herbert Harington, author of the well-known
ATwlysis, His work, published between 18 15 and
i8jzi, has long been out of print, and of course many
of the Statutes, analysed and explained with wonder-
ful clearness and precision, have been supplanted by
later and better laws. But if any student of past
times, or civil servant now employed in the Lower
Provinces, wishes to understand thoroughly the gra-
dual introduction of our administrative system, the
terrible legacies of Muhammadan Viceroys, the diffi-
culties encountered in the collection of the revenue
and the establishment of law and order, he will study
Harington's Analysis.

That work is for Indian legislation what Coke on
Littleton is for English law. Part of Vol. HI. which
treats of the Land Revenue is enlivened by a contro-
versy with Colonel Wilks who, while writing his
Historical Sketches of the South of InfuHa, a book of
much value, seemed to have completely misunderstood
the Zamlnd&ri tenures of Bengal. What appeared
to Colonel Wilks * an inextricable puzzle,' is simplified
and made clear by Harington. He began by quoting

THE REVENUE SETTLEMENT 33

Shore to the effect ' that the most cursory observation
shows the situation of things in this country to be
singularly confused. The relation of a Zamlnddr to Go-
vernment, and of a Ryot to a Zaminddr, is neither that
of a proprietor nor a vassal, but a compound of both.
The former performs acts of authority unconnected
with proprietary right : the latter has rights without
real property. And the property of the one and the
rights of the other are in a great measure held at dis-
cretion. Such was the system which we found, and
which we have been under the necessity of adopting.
Much time, I fear, will elapse before we can establish a
system perfectly consistent in all its parts, and before
we can reduce the compound relation of a Zamindd,r
to Government, and of a Ryot to a Zaminddr, to the
simple principles of landlord and tenant/ Then Haring-
ton himself goes on to say that this was the principal
source of all the confusion which had been introduced
into the discussions about Indian landed tenures. ' It
is by attempting to assimilate the complicated system
which we found in this country, with the simple princi-
ples of landlord and tenant in our own, and especially
in applying to the Indian system terms of appropriate
and familiar signification which do not without con-
siderable limitation properly belong to it, that much,
if not all, of the perplexity ascribed to the subject has
arisen.^ He follows this up by a definition of the
Zaminddr as we found him, which for well-balanced
antithesis, recognition of rights followed by language

34 LORD CORNWALLIS

of positive limitation, and fair solution of perplexing
contradictions, haa probably not been surpassed in
any Minute, State Paper, or Proclamation on the
subject.

' The Zamfnddr Appears to be a Landholder of a peculiar
description, not definable by any single term in our language.
A receiver of the territorial Bevenue of the State from the
Ryots and other under-tenants of the land: allowed to
succeed to his Zamind^l by inheritance, yet in general re-
quired to take out a renewal of his title from the Sovereign,
or his representative, on payment of a 'pt%}ilcaBk or fine of
investiture to the Emperor, and a nazardnd or present to
his provincial delegate the Nizim: permitted to transfer
his Zamindiri by sale or gift, yet commonly expected to
obtain previous special permission: privileged to be generally
the annual contractor for the public revenue receivable from
his Zamind^rf, yet set aside with a limited provision in land
or money, whenever it was the pleasure of the Government
to collect the rents by separate agency or to assign them
temporarily or permanently by the grant of a Jaghfr or
Altamghd ; authorized in Bengal since the early part of the
present century to apportion to the Pargands, villages, and
lesser divisions of land within his Zamlnddri, the abw6hs or
cesses imposed by the Subahdar, usually in some proportion
to the Standard Assessment of the Zamfnddri established by
Todar Mall, and others; yet subject to the discretionary
interference of public authority, to equalize the amount
assessed on particular divisions or to abolish what appeared
oppressive to the Ryot : entitled to any contingent emolu-
ments proceeding from his contract during the period of his
agreement, yet hound by the laws of his tenure to deliver in
a. faithful account of his receipts: responsible by the same

y. H. HARINGTON'S VIEWS 35

terms for keeping the peace within his jurisdiction, but
apparently allowed to apprehend only and deliver over to
a Musalm^n magistrate for trial and punishment — this is,
in abstract, my present idea of a Zamindir under the Mughal
constitution and practice.'

This was the opinion of the young revenue officer,
who had been brought up in the school of Hastings
and twenty-eight years afterwards, with his ripe ex-
perience, he saw no reason to alter his language.
But he then explains the changes in the Zamindar's
situation and privileges which the Permanent Settle-
ment, had introduced. Glancing at the reservation to
Government of the power to legislate for the protec-
tion of dependent Tfilukddrs, Ryots, and other culti-
vators, he remarks that the Zamindfir was now at
Kberty to appropriate to his own use the difference
between the portion of the produce which was the
right of Government, and his own private rent. This
share was already estimated to be treble what it had
been before 1793, and looking to this increment and
advantage, Hai'ington was prepared to recognise the
Zaminddrs, Tiilukdd.rs, and all landholders, of what-
ever denomination, as * proprietors in a general sense.'

In other not unimportant particulars their position
was secured and improved. Heirs and successors
were no longer called on to take out a sanad, or
deed of investiture, in ratification of their succession.
They were not expected to pay the former Peshkash
or the Nazardnd. No permission was needed for the

36 LORD CORXWALUS

sale or tnuisfer of an estate. As long as the revenae
was fhlly and ponctoall j paid, the Zamindar was no
longer subject to temporary or permanent removal
from the management of the Zamindaii. As he had
been relieved from the imposition of new or extra
cesses, he was bound to abstain from imposing similar
taxes on his Ryots. Bat he was no longer liable to
famish any accoants of receipts and disbarsements,
except when sach accoants were essential to the ap-
portionment of the Pablic Revenae on the division of
an estate between joinirshareholders. Finally, he had
been relieved of the chaige of the police, and was only
expected to aid the regalar officials of the Government
by preserving the peace and giving information of
crimes and heinoas offences. And as Harington had
previously defined the statas of a Zamind^ ander the
Mughal Government and daring the administrations
of Clive, Verelst, Cartier, and Hastings, he wound up
by a definition applicable to his new position under
the Comwallis Code. He had become ' a landholder,
possessing a Zamlnd&ri estate which is hereditable and
transferable by sale, gift, or bequest: subject under
iall circumstances to the public assessment fixed upon
it : entitled, after payment of such assessment^ to ap-
propriate any surplus rents or profits which may law-
fully be receivable by him from the under-tenants of
land in his Zamind£ri or from the improvement and
cultivation of untenanted lands ; but subject never-
theless to such rules and restrictions as are already

SHORE'S VIEWS 37

established or may be hereafter enacted by the British
Government, for securing the rights and privileges of
Ryots and other under-tenants of whatever denomina-
tion, in their respective tenures ; and for protecting
them against undue exaction or oppression/

Comwallis had two very distinct objects in view.
He wished to recognise the Zamindars as landed
proprietors with the prospect of an increased rental
from the cultivation of the land, and he desired that
the Settlement made with them for ten years should
be declared permanent and fixed for ever. Here was
one of the points in which he differed from Shore,
and a large part of the Minutes and State Papers of the
day is taken up with long discussions on this head.

Briefly stated, Shore held that the capacities of
the land had not been properly ascertained: that
we had no staff of men possessed of sufficient know-
ledge of the vast and intricate subjects of rents,
tenures, and agricultural interests ; that great abuses
prevailed in the levy by Zaminddrs of extra cesses
from the Ryots ; that it was desirable to diminish
the size of vast Zamfnd&ris and to increase the
number of small proprietors : that these ends could
not be attained without time and trouble; and, in
short, that before committing ourselves to an irre-
vocable Settlement in Perpetuity it would be prudent
and politic to wait. Lord Comwallis replied that we
had not then, and should not have at the end of ten
years, any staff of officials capable of entering into

38 LORD CORNWALLIS

such minute and complicated details ; that a very
large portion of the Province was waste and jungle,
and that a Permanent Settlement would give con-
fidence to the Zamfnddrs, increase to agriculture, and
stability to Government. It is well here to dwell
on a fact which of late years has been conveniently or
negligently overlooked ; and this is that the share of
the Zamind&r was in those days reckoned at only
one-tenth of his whole receipts. The remaining
nine-tenths were to go to the Government. K a
Zamind^ declined after a trial to engage for the
collection of the revenue in any district, and another
man became the collecting agent, an allowance, of ten
per cent, only, was set aside for the excluded Za-
minddr, and the same rule was followed in the case of
minors and females. Shore anticipated that on the
confirmation of the proposed assessment, the profits
of the Zamlnd&r might reach to nearly fifteen per
cent. It is not superfiuous to state that while we
have no absolute certainty as to the net profits of
Zamind&rs at the present day, we may safely conclude
that in very many cases they far exceed Shore's
moderate estimate.

In another important point Shore and Comwallis
were at issue. There were certain internal duties
which the Zamind&rs had been in the habit of levy-
ing. They were known as sayer and rdhddri or transit
dues, and as taxes on goods exposed for sale in the
wholesale and retail markets of the country. It is

TRANSIT DUTIES 39

not necessary now to go into these differences at great
length, though a knowledge of them may be deemed
indispensable to the young civilian of the present day.
The result can be shortly put. The adyer duties were
local and arbitrary charges levied by Zamindfirs on
goods passing through their estates by land and
water. The rdhddri were similar in kind. This word
properly means a permission or permit for goods to
pass: a kind of black mail. Both kinds were for-
mally abolished by the Laws of 1790 and 1793.

Since that date, though such dues have been occa-
sionally levied throughout Bengal by oppressive and
high-handed Zammdfirs, within the memory and cog-
nizance of men still living, the theory has been that
Zamind&rs are confined in the collection of their dues
to rents of cultivated lands, to fisheries, to pasture, and
to the natural yield of the jungle and forest. A
little further explanation may be expedient in regard
to duties levied by Zamlnd£rs, not on goods passing
through their estates and in transit from one Zamin-
d&ri or Pargan& to another, but on goods brought
and exposed to sale at certain distinct places. These
are designated by Shore in language applicable to this
very hour, as the Ganj, the B&zdr, and the HAt.
The Ganj is a wholesale market, though articles
may also be retailed at such places by the smaller
traders. Familiar examples of such Ganjs, which
are centres of enormous traffic, are Sirdjganj in
Fabni, Nalchiti in B^karganj, and Ndr&inganj in

40 LORD CORNWALLIS

Dacca. A B&zdr is simply an assemblage of ten,
twenty, or fifty and more houses and shops for the
retail of all articles of subsistence. By a E.At is
meant a place where vegetables^ fruits, and the
necessaries of life are exposed for sale, generally on
two special days in the week. Sometimes each per-
manent b&z&r has its bi-weekly market or H&t,

But quite as often a Hai is held in an open space
where there is not a single permanent structure of
any kind. On H&t days such places are resonant
with the hum of two thousand voices of buyers and
sellera. On other days the H&t is a lifeless, un-
tenanted, vacant space. It is very significant when we
consider the point of absolute ownership claimed for
Zamfnddrs^ that there was a considerable amount of
discussion on paper whether these Ganjs, B&zdrs^
and Hdits should not be taken entirely away from
the Zamindd^rs, and separated from their estates. The
opinion actually prevailed in some quarters that the
rights and privileges of the Zamfnd&rs were to be con-
fined to arable and pasture, to fisheries and forests alone.

In some parts of the Province, the Zaminddrs did
not even claim the Ganj at all. Shore mentions
the cases of men who had become proprietors of
Ganj and Bdz&rs without any Zamind&rl rights.
In the end, all three descriptions of markets were
handed over to the Zamind^rs within whose estates
they were found ; and amongst their rights and privi-
leges none, to this day, is more valued or often more

MINOR INTERESTS. THE tAlUKDArS 41

productive, than the privilege of setting up a new
H&t or Baz&r. Indeed, down to recent times Bdzars
were set up by powerful proprietors with the express
object of ruining a rival and attracting his buyers
and sellers ; and many outrages, fights, and affrays
and much litigation used to ensue from such proceed-
ings some thirty and forty years ago.

It is no disparagement to the discernment of Corn-
wallis that he had not such a vivid notion of the
interior of a district in Bengal and Behar as was
present to the mind of Shore. But it is also clear
that Comwallis had managed to grasp successfully
some of the main points in the agricultural and
revenue system of the Province and that, as before
stated, he did not by any means intend to hand over
the whole agricultural and village community to the
superior landlords to be dealt with by them on the
terms of contract and under the economic laws of
demand and supply. To prove this we have only to
read carefully his Minutes and Regulations. He was
in favour of multiplying smaller proprietors, as he
was of opinion that their management was better.
He conceded to some smaller Tdluhddrs the privilege
of payment of revenue direct to the Government
Treasury instead of through the superior Zaminddr.
Such estates in revenue phraseology were called
Huz'AjH in contradistinction to Shikmi Tdluks.

He laid down the principle that a Zamlnddr could
only receive the customary or established rent, and

4% LORD CORNIVALLIS

that he had no right to dispossess any one cultivator
for the sole purpose of giving his land to another.
He insisted that Zamindixs should grant paUda or
documents specifying the amount which the Byots
were to pay ' by whatever rule or custom it may be
demanded.' Every cess or ^benevolence' known as
ahwdh, imposed by the Zamlnd&r, was declared by
Comwallis to be a breach of his agreement and a
direct violation of the established laws of the country.

He expressly reserved to Government the right to
enquire into and to resume alienations of land gi-anted
for religious and secular purposes to favourites,
Brahmans, astrologers, priests, and other classes : and
one of the sections of the Regulation or Law in which
he embodied these views contains, as has been shown,
an intimation that as it was the duty of the ruling
power to protect the helpless classes, the Governor-
General in Council, whenever he might deem it
proper, would enact such Regulations as he might
think necessary for the safety and welfare of the
dependent Tfilukddrs, Ryots, and other cultivators of
the soU. In many other ways was a limit imposed
on the power of the Zamfnd&r. Though peinnitted
to sell and mortgage his estates, he was not by any
such transaction to endanger the realisation of the
Government revenue.

Although private sales of estates were not numerous
the shares of joint-proprietors had to be separated.
And the separation, which at first only meant that

THE ZAMInDAR 45

each shareholder collected his rents by a separate
agent, in the end resulted in a division of the terri-
torial estate. It then became the duty of the Collector
to see that each separate portion or cluster of villages
was assessed with its proper amount of revenue.
And in any private transfer or any official division of
the land, the interest of Government was effectively
protected by the action of the Collector. Unless this
person had given his sanction to the transaction, the
whole original estate was held liable for the dues of
Government.

. For some time subsequent to the Code of 1793
Zaminddrs were prevented by law from granting
leases beyond a certain term of years and creating
perpetual sub-infeudations. The Zamlnd&r, it has
been shown, was to take the bad years with the good,
and as he was liable to no enhancement, he was to
expect no remission in drought or scarcity. When an
estate was put up to public auction, the incoming
purchaser acquired his new possession free from any
fresh encumbrances created by his predecessor. And
at some periods of our rule many ingenious frauds
were attempted. Zamfndars, who had received a
bonus for the creation of an encumbrance or sub-
infeudation, purposely allowed their estates to be put
up to auction for arrears, then purchased them in the
name of a dependent or third person, and tried to
annul the subordinate titles which they had them-
selves created. This sort of proceeding had, however,

44 LORD CORNWALLIS

very little effect on the actual tenant-proprietor or
cultivator. And his position was to some extent safe-
guarded by a rule that the Zaminddr was not at
liberty to enhance the ordinary rent without resorting
to a regular civil suit. Actions to fix the rent of a
Ryot or to bring it up to the standard of the Par-
gand or the neighbourhood became common. The
judicial rent now familiar to English readers from its
recent introduction into Ireland, was the law of the
land in India a century ago. It has never been
shown how this necessity of a resort to a judicial
tribunal could be compatible with any theory of
absolute and unlimited ownership.

Still, the position of the Bdjd, Zamind&r, or Chau-
ddri during and after the administration of Cornwallis
was in many respects one of power, privilege, and
profit. And something must now be added in regard
to what was either conferred on him by law or
recognised by judicial decisions. An estate, which is
often used as the English equivalent for the term
Zaminddrl or Tdluk, in Bengal merely denotes a
certain tract of land, with boundaries loosely given
or not defined at all, which is burdened with a certain
specific amount of revenue. It may mean a single
village, a cluster of villages, portions of several
villages, or a principality as big as an English county.
Each estate bears a separate number on the roll of
the Collectorate and is usually described as situated
in such or such a Pargand or Chakld. In revenue

THE ZAMIndAR 45

pliraseology the villages contained in the estate are
termed Mauzds : a word which would not be
employed by an ordinary speaker talking of the
village in which he resided or to which he was
bound. But whether the estate were large or small,
the Zaminddr was entitled to demand his rent from
every tenant : and he alone could induct new tenants
into their holdings. All waste and untenanted lands
were his. He might cultivate them by hired labour,
which he rarely or never did, or he might induce new
Eyots to settle there under his protection, build
houses for themselves, clear the jungle, and break up
the soil. In such instances the rent demanded was
at first very small. On lands that had been long
under cultivation the rent varied with the nature of
the crop. There was a moderate rate for rice crops
grown on the higher ground, and a heavier rate on
rice in the deep land. The better kinds of produce
were more heavily taxed than either of the above,
such as sugar-cane, tobacco, and pdn : and gardens and
homesteads usually paid the highest of all. All plots
vacated by famine, desertion, or death, ipso facto
reverted to the Zamfnd^. He was allowed to
challenge the titles of all who claimed to hold small
plots as Ldkhirdi or rent-free, and the onus of
proving a vaUd ^ant from some former authority,
empowered to make such a title, was by the judicial
coui'ts always thrown on the Ldkhirdjddr. It was
held in the case of squatters or Byots who had never

46 LORD CORNWALLIS

asked for or received any pattds or titles to their
holding, that no period of time could bar the Zamin-
ddr*s claim to rent. As he was bound to pay the
revenue, a demand for rent to pay it constituted a
cause of action, and no amount of time in which pay-
ment had not been demanded, or had been withheld,
could create a title to sit rent-free. In theory it was
asserted that most Ryots could not sell or transfer their
holdings without the consent of the superior landlord.

But in treating of the Ryot's position it will be
shown that in this respect practice was at variance with
theory. Over jungle, waste, scrub and swamp, the
Zaminddr had equally clear rights. They were termed
Bankar, or forest produce: Jalkar, fishery: PhvZkar,
honey and fruits : and ThaUcar, what dropped on the
ground. When the Zaminddr was minded to expend
money on his 2iamind&L*i, his expenditure generally
took the following shape. He might drain a huge
swamp by cutting a channel for the overflow of its
water into the nearest river. He excavated by paid
labour an enormous reservoir which secured a supply
of pure water for half-a-dozen villages. He con?-
structed ghdts or landing-places of stone or brick
on the banks of rivers or tanks. He dedicated
temples and built school-houses. But he never con-
trolled the agricultural operations of his tenants, or
thought himself bound to provide them with houses
or to fence their land.

It is clear that Comwallis did not fully compre-

THE ZAMINDAR 47

hend the custom of the country in regard to the
spread of cultivation. In the first and most important
of hisEegulations he expresses a hope that the Zamin-
ddrs would exert themselves to cultivate their lands,
and would improve their respective estates, and he
assures them that they would enjoy exclusively the
fruits of theii' own industry without any fear that
the demands of Government would be augmented in
consequence of any such increase of cultivation and
enhanced value of landed property. From the use of
the above phrases we can only conceive the ideal or
typical Zaminddr whom Cornwallis had in his mind,
to be identical with what in England we should call
an improving landlord: one who expends capital in
planting trees where corn will not grow with profit,
in making hedges, clearing out ditches, draining wet
lands, and erecting model cottages of the most
approved type. Now it has been already shown that
the Zamfnddr ici almost every district did spend con-
siderable sums in digging tanks, building temples and
ghM%^ and cutting canals. But he never spent a
farthing on drains, cottages, breaking up jungle and
waste land, or in introducing the higher and more
lucrative kinds of cultivation on any holding within his
estate. The whole of this burden fell on the Ryot.

It is true that a Zamindfir gave to the Ryot
whom he inducted into a plot of ground, the counte-
nance which was at aU times indispensable in such
a country as India. He was occasionally, to such

48 LORD COENWALLIS

tenants, a refuge from the tyranny and encroachment
of a rival landholder. But it was the mattock and
axe of the Ryot and the exercise of the Ryot's thews
and sinews that cut down the jungle and cleared the
waste. He worked, as it were, for himself under the
Zamlnddr's shadow. The new ground which he
broke up without the slightest help from the superior
landlord and his agents, was frequently assessed for
some years at a very low rate. It might be a half or
a quarter of the usual rental, or a mere nominal rate
for the first twelvemonth. Sometimes, from the
negligence or the indiflFerence of the local manager,
a holding might escape taxation for several seasons, or
the Ryot might take in additional land beyond the
amount specified in his deed of induction. But what-
ever might be the fate of the Ryot, and whether his
Zaminddr was careless or precise in the assessment
and exaction of rent, it is indisputable that all over
Bengal the Zaminddr looked on placidly while the
tenant-proprietor and the Ryot burnt the jungle
grass, broke up the clay soil, sowed the rice, and
introduced gradually the more valuable products.

It is not necessary in accepting these facts, to cen-
sure the Zamfnd^s as a class for not at once filling
the exact position of improving landlords which
Cornwallis had anticipated. The custom of the
country from the earliest times was for the Ryot
to toil under the Zamlnd^r's protection. But the
Zamfnddr had often private lands or lands in his

THE ZAMtNDAR 49

own occupation, termed in the phraseology of the day
Nij'jot and Khda Khdmdr; and he was not in the
habit, in respect of such plots, of showing the tenantry
how the yield of the land could be increased by
manure, or how on the various levels the cereals, the
date-tree, the jute, the tobacco-plant or the sugar-
cane, could be sown and grown with profit. Practi-
cally in these cases his own servants or hired
labourers cultivated the Eh^s lands and produced
very indiflFerent results. The main object of the
Zamlndars, for years after 1793, ^^ ^ induct Ryots
into waste and culturable lands, as population in-
creased and as more space and new villages were
required to meet the wants of a growing community.
It was one of the cardinal points of the new Settle-
ment that Government on the one hand would not
impose any additional taxation on any lands within
the supposed area of any estate which had been
cleared and cultivated, or on account of any luxuriant
harvest in any one year. On the other hand, the
Zamind&r was not to expect remissions or sus-
pensions of the revenue when his lands suffered
from drought, inundation, or other calamity of the
season. He was bound to take the lean and the fat
years together and to make the best of both. K he
failed in the punctual discharge of his obligations to
the State, no excuse could be accepted. His estate,
or a portion sufficient to make good the arrears due,
would be put up to auction peremptorily and sold to

so LORD CORNWALLIS

the highest bidder. He was not allowed to plead the
default or incapacity of a shareholder, though he
could always protect his own interests by paying up
the defaulter's portion, and recovering his payments
by means of a civil action. The provisions of the
Sale Law were stringent, but they were an improve-
ment on tixe ancient mode of compelling payment by
the confinement of the defaulter or by his corporal
punishment. And a sure and certain spread of culti-
vation was the natural consequence of the cessation
of Muhammadan oppression and Mar&th& raids. The
operations of nature in that region were always
effected on a gigantic scale. K the drought was of
long continuance or the inundations widespreading
and calamitous, as was often the case in Central and
Eastern Bengal, the silt deposited by the overflowing
waters elevated and fertilised the soil. The reed and
the bulrush made way for the rice crop. The jungle
retreated before the axe and the plough. The
swamp became firm land. And around new villages
and hamlets there sprang up fruit trees, bamboos, and
a rich and artificial vegetation almost as dense as the
primeval forest which it had displaced. In all this
there was an increase to the profits of the Zamlnd&r.

The documents which he was expected to give to
Byots, new or old, were known as pattdSy and the
Byot was bound to hand in exchange for the same
what was termed a koMbliyat or acceptance. These
two terms have very often, in judicial decisions, formal

(. .

THE ZAMIndAR 51

reports, and other documents, been loosely denominated
as leases and their counterparts. In truth the pattd
of an ordinary Ryot has no resemblance to an English
lease. No term of years is specified. There are stipu-
lations to the effect that the Ryot is not to withhold,
his rent or fail in payment on the plea of drought or
inundation, death or desertion of joint-shareholders,
or tenants-at-will without occupancy rights.

Timber and fruit trees were not to be cut down.
Not that they had been planted by the hand of
the Zaminddr, but because by their destruction the
value of the holding was lessened. Similarly, if a
substantial tenant wished to excavate a tank, the
Zamind&r might, if he chose, put in an objection on
the ground that any diminution of the culturable or
cultivated area diminished the security for rent. As
a matter of fact, however, such objections were com-
paratively rare. Many of the Bengal villages suffer
from a redundancy of reservoirs not sufficiently deep
and not always kept in proper repair. These rights
and privileges were coupled with certain liabilities
and duties. The Zamlnd&r was bound to provide
means to carry the post on what we should call cross-
country roads. This postal service rarely went be-
yond the transmission of heavy poKce reports. Besides
his obligation to assist the police, the Zamfnd&r was
bound to prevent the illicit manufacture of salt and
the unauthorised cultivation of the poppy, inasmuch
as Govemnijent retained the monopoly p/. opium and

5% LORD CORNWALUS

salt. The ZamincUb* was also credited with the main-
tenance and pay of the village watchmen. But for
many years the postal service between police stations
and the magisti'ate's court, as well as the Chaukid&ri
or village watch system, was on a most unsatis-
factory footing.

If some of the above responsibilities were occa-
sionally inconvenient and irksome, they could also
be turned into instruments of power and oppression
in the hands of energetic landlords who could afford
to have good legal advice and who were well served
by active afi:ents and retainers. While inexperienced
and indiffeTent Zamlndfirs were cheated by Lir ser-
vants, baffled by combinations of Ryots, and driven
to the expedient of creating sub-infeudations which
left them rent-chargers on their own estates ; others,
with energy and intelligence and without scruples,
managed to avail themselves of every clause and
section of the law, and to convert statutory liabilities
into sources of profit. They sent their agents to
measure holding after holding, and levied rents on
all lands in excess of the pattd, as they had a perfect
right to do. They sued substantial Ryots for enhanced
rents, in order to exact the rates leviable by common
custom on the better products. In spite of repeated
prohibitions, legal and executive, they demanded and
received extra cesses known as abwdbs at every remark-
able incident in their lives : the birth of a son, the
marriage of a daughter, the dedication of a temple,

THE RYOT 53

the erection of a school, the building of a gh&t, the
march of a high official through the district, the
receipt of a title or a dress of honour from the
Government, the termination of a great lawsuit, or
any other propitious or unpropitious event: and it
may certainly be conceded that, if not in the exact
position of an English landlord, the Zamind£r was by
Lord Comwallis raised fr«m an uncertain to a well-
defined place, and to one of emolument, privUege, and
power. It could no longer be altered at the caprice
of some wayward autocrat ruling at Dacca or Mur-
shid&b&d. It was stamped with the seal of a foreign
power whose representatives were known to be men
of their word. It could only be forfeited by inca-
pacity or wilful default. And finally the Zamlnd&r
might raise money on his estate, mortgage and sell it,
and transmit it to his heirs and successors, increased in
value, unimpeachable in title, and unaffected by any
rise in price or any further claims of the State.

In treating of the rights, interests, and position of
the Byot, it would be impossible, in the limits of this
memoir, to describe the various Kyotty tenures to be
found in the Provinces to which the Perpetual Settle-
ment was applied. Many which bear different titles
in different districts of the Lower Provinces, are in
substance and reality almost identical. In some cases
the distinctions are more apparent than solid; and
certainly at various epochs, when the position and
claims of the Byots have been investigated, it has

54 LORD CORNIVALLIS

generally been found possible to class them under
three great divisions. Important but comparatively
few in number, as has been often pointed out, are
the tenants who hold land at rates positively fixed
before the Perpetual Settlement, or at rates never
enhanced or vaiied since that date. These valuable
tenures are commonly denominated istimrdH, or
rmikarrariy and to these titles there is often appended
the word Taauir&afy or hereditary. No claim for
enhancement can affect a valid title of this kind.

Next in the scale are resident Ryots, who, though
not holding nor claiming to hold at unchangeable
rates, have been considered to have a right to
retain their tenures as long as they pay their rents,
and against whom claims for enhancement must
be urged and proved by the formal process of a
regular civil suit. These have a sort of proprietary
right : they form a very considerable and important
class ; and much discussion and litigation have ensued
in regard to individual cases as well as to the claims
of the whole body. The third and last class is that of
cultivators without any rights of occupancy. These
latter are very often the sub-tenants of tenant-pro-
prietors, and as such are variously known as shikmi,
kurfa^ or koljdna Ryots. These terms are almost
identical and axe perfectly well understood. Of course
this class is to be found on large and small estates
holding directly under the Zaminddj* or T^lukd^r.

For all practical purposes it would not be diffi-

THE RYOT 55

cult to assign to tenants in any part of the Lower
Provinces a place in one or other of the above cate-
gories. They hold either from 1793 or possibly before
it, at an unchanged and unchangeable rate. Or they
have a right of occupancy and cannot legally be
evicted, though by a civil action their rates may be
brought up to the scale prevalent in the Pargani, in
which they reside, or in the neighbouring villages.
Or they are sub-tenants or tenants without rights of
occupancy, and it may be conceded that in recent
times their rents have been the subject of contract.
Practically in the first half of this century their rates
were settled by custom and mutual understanding.

It is essential to lay stress on the occupancy right
because doubts have been thrown on its existence,
and attempts have been made in the interest of the
Zamlnd&rs to prove that if ever in existence, it had
perished or waa so faint as not to merit legal recog-
nition. But it is far more correct to say that if the
right was not recognised by statute till long after the
time of Comwallis, it was an article of firm belief
held by a large proportion of the peasantry. Pay-
ment of rent is almost everywhere in India regarded
as an obligation from which no cultivator can escape.
A regular discharge of this obligation is often put for-
ward as a mark of respectability. Failure or refusal
to pay would stamp the recusant as a hadTodisJi or bad
character. But then this admitted obligation was
balanced, in the mind of a large number of cultivators,

56 LORD CORNWALUS

by the comforting reflection that there could be no
capricious eviction of those who paid.

In many districts of Bengal the occupancy Byot
has always played an important part in the spread of
cultivation and the improvement of agriculture. He
may be known by various denominations. He is
the jotddr or the Odnthiddr or the KhAd-Kdsht Ryot.
This last term signifies a tenant whose homestead
tind holding are in one and the same village. In
many instances his family has lived in the same place
for generations. He has erected two, three, and four
houses, neatly built of bamboos and wattles, well
thatched, with a verandah on more than one side,
and the whole raised on a firm foundation of
well-beaten clay. The space between the houses
ensures privacy. The courtyard and the dwellings
are scrupulously clean. They are shaded by fine

with foliage and heavy with fruit. Many of this
class, if not rich, are independent and comfortable,
and in spite of the antagonism between Zaminditr
and Byot, which has been the normal state of parts
of the country for some two or three generations,
many more of this useful class have maintained
their position than is often supposed. It is the result
of a community of interest on the part of the cultivat-
ing castes, of a passionate attachment to the native
village and the ancestral homestead, and of the popu-
lar and well-founded belief that the Zaminddr had at

THE RYOT 57

no period the power, and not often the will, to resort
to evictions. And instances of abuse of power and of a
disregard and defiance of law, police, and magistrates,
for particular objects, are no proof of any deliberate
intention to override what may be termed the common
law of the country.

Left to himself in many matters, the Ryot was his
own master in all the processes of agriculture and
cropping. No Zaminddr ever dreamt of insisting on
rotation of crops, consumption of straw on the spot,
or any of those familiar conditions which tenants in
other countries holding under contracts are compelled
to accept. The tenant-proprietor and even the non-
occupancy Ryot, erects his own dwelling-house, finds
his own materials, puts up his slender fences, cuts the
channel to conduct superfluous water from his own
plot to his neighbour's, maintains the small embank-
ments of earth that serve for communication over the
plain as well as for boundaries of holdings, expends
time and money on the higher and more remunerative
species of produce, and in short makes the most of his
land without advice, direction, or hindrance from the
superior landlord. These are distinct and irrefragable
proofs of a permanent interest in the land, and yet
they are perfectly compatible with the existence of
rights and privileges of others. It has been said in a
previous part of the memoir that the Ryot was ex-
pected to notify to his superior any sale or transfer of
his own interest. But that duty, though admitted in

58 LORD CORNWALUS

theory, was frequently disregarded in practice. It is
absolutely certain that the jot or jarmna of a Eyot
had a market value of its own. It was often put up
to public auction in satisfaction of a decree of court,
an(J was bid for and bought by purchasers without
the least reference to the Zamfnd&r. And almost as
often, holdings changed hands by private agreement.

Sometimes a Byot parted with his holding and was
reinstated as a mere cultivator. Sometimes he con-
veyed it to his own Zamfnd&r, and sometimes again
the Zamfnddr was in the habit of buying hold-
ings situated within the estate of a neighbour and a
rival, for purposes of intimidation, annoyance, and
revenge. In other cases the Ryot's holdings have
been punshased openly and fairly, and with a per-
fectly lawful object, by the Zamfnd^ himself. If the
Zamind&r had no spare land of a requisite class, and
wished for a small plot on which to lay out a garden,
build a temple, or excavate a tank, he was forced to bar-
gain with his own Ryot to cede land for the purpose.

He would not be supported by law, custom, or
public opinion in forcibly demanding a cession of the
Ryot's land without compensation or equivalent. In
England any such requirement of the superior land-
lord would easily be met, at the end of an annual or
periodical lease, by the retention of a farm or any
portion of a farm in the hands of the owner. But
CornwaUis did not find, and he did not introduce, any
system of periodical leases or of rents based on contract.

THE RYOT 59

Some of the Kyot's rights and customs may at first
sight appear conflicting and irreconcilable. But they
are in reality quite capable of distinct identification
and of severance.

Zamlnd^rs, on the one hand, usually know per-
fectly well how far they can assert their privileges,
and when they will be resisted or upheld by the law ;
and Ryots, on the other, though pressed for rents,
harshly treated by agents, and compelled to supply
additional funds for the necessities and the caprices of
the landlord, have often successfully met violence by
artifice, learnt in their turn the power of combination
for safety, and held their ground till their position
was defined, stereotyped by statute, and eventually
upheld in the courts of law.

CHAPTER in

Principles and Results.

Some additional remarks on the apparent conflict
of landlords' and tenants' rights and duties will be
found in the chapter giving a summary of the
legislation rendered necessary as a corollary to the
Perpetual Settlement. But a few more words may
now be said as to the other effects of that measure
on the condition of the country, and as to its fulfil-
ment or non-fulfilment of the expectations of its
author. The opinions of the press on the policy of
the measure are not without their value. The editor
of the Calcutta Gazette on the nisi of May, 1789,
expressed his satisfaction at the announcement that,
in September of that year, the revenue of the Behar
province would be fixed in perpetuity. ' We venture
to observe,' he said, ' that the main principles admit a
positive right of property in the landholders in op-
position to a system which has been maintained by
some, that the Zamind&rs and T&lukddrs are public
officers only, and that the Sovereign is the real pro-
prietor of the lands, which he leases out as landlord
instead of levying a tax on them as ruler. The most

THE PERPETUAL SETTLEMENT 6l

unpor;a..t benefits may be expected from this decision.
The proprietor, stimulated by self-interest, will improve
his estate to the utmost of his ability, without appre-
hension of losing the fruits of his improvements from
an increase in his payments to Government; and
without fear of dispossession iGrom the management of
another being more likely to augment the produce of
his lands to the State.' About the same time the
editor observed that a Settlement of the revenues of
this country for a long term of years would produce
greater advantages than those which had been in-
ferred. * By allowing a certain return to industry,
free from any deduction for the public tax, it is prob-
able that extensive plans of improvement would be
undertaken, agriculture increase, and commerce
flourish. The landlord, secure in the enjoyment of his
profits, would be averse to rack-rent his under-
tenants, and these in a country where cultivators, not
employers, are sought for, would be interested in
encouraging the peasantry. In short, a permanent
system promises ease to the lower order of subjects,
opulence to the middle and higher ranks, and a
punctual realisation of the tax of Government.'

The editor also stated that the Governor-General
had come to the important resolution of taking
into the immediate charge of Government the
collection of the Ganj, Bdz&r, H&t, and other duties
generally denominated Sdyer, both in the estates
paying revenue and in the Altamgh&, Aima, J%irs,

62 - LORD CORNWALLIS

and other L&khir&j or rent-free tenures. It has been
already shown that though the above project was
discussed and considered, the Ganjes, B&zirs, and
H&ts were left as appendages to the Zamfnd&ris.
The Sdyer or transit dues were, however, abolished.

The editorial written after the Proclamation of the
Perpetual Settlement for the three Provinces is, in its
way, so remarkable that it has been thought proper
to reproduce it in its entirety. It will be recollected
that the Indian press was then in its infancy, and
that newspapers were not free to discuss every
political event. The remarks on a novel and im-
portant measure, as it appeared to a writer who,
though he cannot be pronounced altogether indepen-
dent, had yet undertaken to acquaint the community
with the views and intentions of Government, will
not be without their interest. They are somewhat
analogous to the first criticisms on the appearance of
a great historical work or a poem destined to become
famous. The editorial of the 9th of May, 1793, is as
follows : —

'We have great pleasure in announcing to the public an
event which immediately concerns the native landholders,
and is certainly an object of the greatest political importance
to the welfare of these provinces. The circumstance we
mention is a proclamation issued by the Governor-General in
Council, declaring that the Jarmna which has been assessed
on the lands of the different description of proprietors in
£engal> Behar and Orissa, under the Kegulations for the

THE PERPETUAL SETTLEMENT 63

Decennial Settlement of the public revenue, is from henceforth
fixed for ever.

' To enter into a detail of the advantages that will, in all
probability, be derived from the various articles of this
proclamation, by confirming the claims of all ranks of pro-
prietors, and abolishing many inferior duties, would lead
into a very wide field, which we could but imperfectly
explore ; but the great purpose of it, the permanent settle-
ment of the land-tax, we consider as involving so much
political truth with practical benefit, that we cannot pass it
over without endeavouring to illustrate what it is impossible
not to admire.

*It has frequently been a subject of controversy among
philosophers and financiers, whether the taxation of land
should be fixed according to a certain valuation, not after-
wards to be altered, or formed on a scale which varies with
each variation of the real rent of the land, and rises or falls
with the improvement or declension of its cultivation.
Government has, on the present occasion, adopted the
former system ; and we think, however specious the latter may
appear, it is founded on a mistaken principle, as it in argu-
ment supposes that considerable improvements wiU arise,
while in fact it at the same moment throws the strongest
check upon every species of improvement and industry;
namely, that the Gfovemment, which bears no part in the
expense, shall bear away a share of the profits of improve-
ment.

* Under the former system of land-tax, the revenue is
rendered certain to the Government as well as to the
Individual, and nothing is left to the arbitrary disposal of
the one, or the evasion and dishonesty of the other; at the
same time the strongest inducement is held out to the pro?
prietor to improve the value of his estate, for as. that \»

64 LORD CORNWALLIS

improved, not only his general comfort and wealth are
increasing, but the very tax itself is rendered more light
by bearing a smaller proportion to the increased value and
produce. Nor is Gk)vemment excluded from sharing in these
advantages, though in a less immediate way, for the im-
mediate consequence of an increase of produce is an increase
of the population of the country, whose industry returns
again to the fields, or overflows into the manu&ctories
which work upon their productions.

'Such are the effects which must result from the humane
and wise principles announced by this proclamation, which
opens a new era in the history of our Government in the
East, and must be considered by the natives as the greatest
blessing conferred on them for many ages.

' During the period of the Muhammadan Government, the
assessment on land was subject to numerous and arbitrary
impositions ; that assessment, since the English have been in
possession of these Provinces, has been variously levied
and frequently augmented ; the evil effects of this desultory
system were severely felt; they will now have been com-
pletely remedied; the Decennial Settlement placed the
revenue on the equitable footing of a fixed unalterable
assessment provisionally, until the Court of Directors should
give their approbation to it. That Settlement is now confirmed
for ever.

' With regard to the amount of ihejcmmub^ its moderation
is sufficiently proved by the complete payment of the revenue
last year to Government, except in two Zaminddris, not only
without a balance, but with the additional collection of
former suspensions.

'By these measures a permanent revenue is secured to
Government, property to individuals, and a prospect of
wealth and happiness is opened to the natives co-extensive

PRINCIPLES AND RESULTS 65

with the industry and capital they shall think fit to employ
in the cultivation and improvement of their lands/

It will be seen from the above that the editor
shared in the delusion that the proprietors would
themselves expend capital in improving their estates.
His anticipations of industrial enterprise and manu-
factories were certainly a little premature. But
no exception can be taken to the remark that the
Proclamation was the commencement of a new era,
and that it was in striking contrast to the system
adopted by Muhammadan Viceroys, and to a certain
extent by the Anglo-Indian Government for more
than twenty years. As Comwallis had anticipated, an
immediate impulse was given to cultivation. Invasions
of Maghs from Arakan, common in the sixteenth
century, and the Marathd raids of the earlier part of
the eighteenth century, had come to an end.

The agriculturists of Bengal had thus been secured
against robbery from without before the time of
Comwallis. They were now in a position to increase
and multiply, to found villages in spots tenanted
only by the wild boar, the deer, and the tiger, and
they had only to contend with the exaction and
rapacity of their own countrymen. There was also
the semblance and outward show of executive au-
thority, and the people began dimly to discern that
their lives and properties were no longer held under
the good-will and caprice of irresponsible despots.

66 LORD CORNWALLIS

At any rate it is quite certain that, aided by natural
agencies, the agriculturists soon began to lessen the
area of uncultivated and forest land and to make
inroads on the swamps. The copious rainfall, and the
overflow of many of the network of rivers which
find their way into the Bay of Bengal, have had the
effect of gradually raising the level of the soil, silting
up the marsh, and replacing the fish- weir and the net
of the fowler by the plough. The author of this
memoir himself had the advantage of hearing from
the .ouU. „t . d^ .er^nt. Z U^ hi/e„e»
in 1793 and ended it in 1845, after more than fifty
years of continuous service on the Bengal establish-
ment, the opinion which was held by some very
competent judges of the paramount necessity of a
permanent assessment at the time of the famous
Proclamation. It was, he said, such as to leave the
Governor-General hardly any option at aU. There was
difficulty in some districts in getting well-qualified
persons to engage for the realisation of the public
revenue.

There was even greater difficulty in keeping them
to their engagements. Whole districts, easily reclaim-
able, were covered with grass jungle and reeds. In
others, the primeval forest of Sal and other timber
trees had scarcely been touched by the axe. On
many of the public roads^ or rather on the wretched

^ The late Mr. James Pattle, senior member of the Board of Bevenue
for many years, to his death in September, 1845.

PRINCIPLES AND RESULTS 6y

tracks of communication impassable for wheeled
carriages for at least 'five months in the year, the
runners who conveyed the post were constantly
carried off by tigers. There wa« plausibiHty in
the argument that without a guarantee against any
increase to the land-tax, the Zaminddrf system, if
not doomed to failure, would never be a success.
But it is admitted that the judgment of posterity has
endorsed the wiser opinion of Shore. Many of the
advantages of a Perpetual Settlement might have
been equally attainable by a Settlement for a long
term of years. It is only fair, in judging Comwallis,
to take into consideration the stubborn difficulties
which he had to face.

Many of the subsidiary measures, executive and
legislative, necessary for the complete success of the
measure, were not immediately carried out. Some
indeed were unaccountably and unwarrantably de-
layed. A summary of them will be given in the
chapter descriptive of subsequent legislation. They
included the resumption of invalid rent-free tenures :
the creation of facilities for the recovery of rent by sum-
mary process ; and the protection of the rights of tenant-
proprietors and others, in 1859 and again in 1884.

But in one aspect, the Settlement has not received
its full meed of praise. Here, for the first time in
Oriental history, was seen the spectacle of a foreign
ruler binding himself and his successors to abstain
from periodical revisions of the land-tax ; almost

E H

68 LORD CORNWALLIS

creating a new race of landlords ; giving to property
another title than the sword of its owner or the favour
of a Viceroy ; and content to leave to the Zamfnd&rs
the whole profit resulting from increased population
and undisturbed peace. At this distance of time it is
not very easy to estimate the exact effect of such
abnegation on the minds of the great Zaminddrs of
Bengal and Behai* as well as on the Chiefs and Princes
of neighbouring States. It is sometimes said that a
policy of this kind is ascribed by natives to weakness
and fear. Whatever may be the case in other instances,
and however necessary it may be to rule Orientals by
firmness and strict justice quite as much as by con-
ciliation, it can hardly be said that the moderation of
Comwallis was considered as a sign of impotence. It
must have been felt all over the Province as a relief,
if not a blessing. And though several of the solid
fruits of the Settlement in perpetuity might have been
equally attained by a Settlement for a long period, it
may be argued that periodical assessments might in
Bengal have been productive of other evils. Bengal
is, more than any other Province in India, the scene
of that evasion and subterfuge which are the prover-
bial resources of the weak. In other Provinces, as the
period for revision draws nigh, a certain amount of
distrust and disquietude arises in the minds of the
population. Wealth is concealed ; lands are purposely
thrown out of cultivation ; and many unfair means
are resorted to in order to avoid an increase of rental.

GOOD RESULTS IN THE MUTINY 69

There can be no doubt that all these disturbing
agencies would have been set actively at work in
Bengal. It is not, moreover, easy to over-estimate the
advantage of a wealthy and privileged class, who have
everything to lose and nothing to gain by revolution.

This was clearly seen and acknowledged at the time
of the Sepoy Mutiny. There were few large military
cantonments in the Lower Provinces in that eventful
year. The elements of a great Sepoy revolt, with its
inevitable accompaniments of arson, plunder, and an-
archy, were not abundant as they were in the Upper
Provinces. Even when isolated detachments of Sepoys
mutinied as they did at Dacca, Chittagong, and in
Birbh6m, they met with no countenance from the Za-
minders. The Sepoys were disciplined and trained to
fight. They had arms of precision in the midst of an
unwarlike population, the bravest of whom could do
little more than use a matchlock to kill a wild beast,
and a spear to transfix an adversary in a village fight.
But after the first outbreak at the Station, where they
were resolutely met by a mere handful of Englishmen,
the Sepoys took to the villages and the jungles, and
then they literally melted away before the impassive
demeanour, the want of sympathy, and the silent
loyalty of the Zaminddrs. In other Provinces the
system of village communities afforded no bulwark
against the tide of anarchy. That system was in many
respects admirable and suited to the community.

It had been justly renowned as a field for the

70 LORD CORNWALUS

exhibition of the highest kind of administrative talent.
Men of large experience, broad views, and active sympa-
thies, had fashioned or had rescued from slow decay,
that most wonderful and diversified piece of mosaic
known as the jxtttiddH tenure. They had almost
defied the teachings of political economy and had well-
nigh arrested the play of social forces by rooting old
and hereditary cultivators to the soiL Yet with the
outbreak of the Sepoys and the temporary eclipse of
British authority, these fabrics, the result of so much
experience and philanthropy, collapsed of themselves
or were broken up. In Bengal public tranquillity was
hardly ruffled. The rebellion of Koer Sing in Behar
was a solitary exception.

In times of famine and scarcity the co-operation of
wealthy Zaminddrs has been invoked by the Govern-
ment, and in many instances ungrudgingly afibrded.
Here and there, no doubt, there were cases where
Zaminddrs were niggardly and selfish. But several
experts hold still to the opinion that scarcity is met,
relief works are set on foot, and supplies are trans-
ported with greater facility, where there are large
Zamind&rfs, than in Provinces where the Settlement
has been made with the heads of village communities,
or with each Kyot direct as in Madras. The Tirhlit
&mine of 1873-4 is certainly an instance in point.
And in a country where social distinctions and in-
equalities still retain their attractions for the masses,
the maintenance of some large Zamfnddrfs is quite

SHORE'S VIEWS *]l

in accordance with native feeling, and it has political
advantages which compensate or at any rate balance
its defects.

But, to sum up, it can hardly now be an open
question whether Shore's plea for delay would have
involved any sacrifice. The Zamind^rs, with security
of tenui'e and with privileges converted into rights,
would have been willing to accept a Settlement for a
long term of years. The changes in the constitution,
duties, and remuneration of the Civil Service, about to
be described, would have enabled the Indian Govern-
ment to train up a race of officials who had a deeper
knowledge of agiicultural customs and a more com-
plete mastery of administrative principles and details.
At any and every periodical revision of the Zamin-
ddri system, abuses must have been tested by in-
(sreased official knowledge, and remedies would have
been applied at an earlier date. This revision would
have probably outweighed any disadvantage arising
out of the excitement inseparable from a break in
the revenue system. As it has turned out, action for
the benefit of tenants and under-tenants has been
forced on the Government by the periodical represen-
tations of district officers, by the recurrence of formid-
able combinations on the part of the agriculturists, and
by outrages for which magistrates and judges who sat
in judgment on their perpetrators were often compelled
to remark that there were divers excuses to be made.

Yet it must be remembered that the Settlement

^% LORD CORNWALLIS

of the Lower Provinces a century ago was not due
to the cries of a down-trodden community and to
a long discussion by well-informed writers in a free
and independent press. It was what seemed to some
men at the time the only way out of a series of
difficulties. Taken in its purely commercial and
financial aspect, it resulted in a considerable aban*
donment of future revenue. As an administrative
measure, it obviously required much more of statutory
declaration and vigorous executive management to
render it complete. But looking at it solely from the
political point of view, it was the means of allaying
apprehensions and removing doubts, while it proved
a strong incentive to good behaviour, and to something
beyond passive loyalty in seditious and troublous
times.

Some of the fundamental principles of the system
were practical and sound. The change from the
mere collecting native agent, with his status that
might or might not become hereditary ; the recogni-
tion, as a matter of right, of Rdj^s, chieftains, and
other superior landlords ; the grave and measured
language of a Proclamation putting an end to brief
and temporary contrivances for the realisation of the
dues of the State ; the incentives to prudent manage-
ment afforded by the prospect of additional rental;
and the sense of security, the limited ownership, and
power of transmission and disposal, were, in theory,
excellent.

zamIndar, rvot, and government 73

Lord Comwallis had only the experience and the
legacies of failure to guide him. Pressed for ways
and means, and anxious for reform in more de-
partments than one, he committed himself to a policy
which, in regard to the three interested parties — the
Zamfndar, the Ryot, and the Ruling Power — assured
the welfare of the first, somewhat postponed the
claims of the second, and sacrificed the increment
of the third.

CHAPTER IV

Reform of the Civil Service

It is almost impossible, in this attempt to describe
Cornwallis as an Indian ruler, to do more than give
occasional extracts from his voluminous correspon-
dence and to state a summary of his political views.
But now and then a private and confidential letter
throws such a light on the perplexities which tried
his constancy and statesmanship, and illustrates pro-
blems only solved after painful experience, that it
is expedient to quote from it at length. Of this kind
is a private and confidential letter to Dundas, dated
April 4th, 1790. That minister had sent him a list
of questions relating to the East India Company as a
commercial and a political institution ; to the right
of patronage to civil appointments in India ; to the
export trade of the Dependency; to the relation
which English forces should bear to the Sepoys ; and to
other matters. Changes in administration have left
to some of the views of the Governor-General only
their historical interest. On other points, his opinions
might have weight with administrators of our own
time ; and his reply to Dundas is a fitting prelude to

LETTER TO DUNDAS 75

a summary of those internal and executive reforms
which were to occupy so much of his time and atten-
tion, and to leave behind them such good and lasting
effects.

'I must acknowledge that I am happy to hear that
the principles of that plan were still under delibera-
tion^ and that it was only upon the supposition that
the commercial branch might be left to the Company,
and the other departments taken into the hands of
Government, that you had stated these queries. Many
weighty objections occur to the separation that you pro-
pose, for it is almost beyond a doubt with me that no
solid advantages would be derived from placing the civil
and revenue departments under the immediate direc-
tion of the King's Government ; and I am perfectly
convinced that if the fostering aid and protection and,
what is full as important, the check and control of the
governments abroad, are withdrawn from the com-
mercial departments, the Company would not long
enjoy their new charter, but must very soon be re-
duced to a state of actual bankruptcy.

' I am not surprised that, after the increased and
vexatious contradictions which you have experienced
from the Court of Directors, you should be desirous of
taking as much of the business as possible entirely
out of their hands ; but I know that great changes
are hazardous in all popular governments, and as the
paltry patronage of sending out a few writers is of
no value to such an administration as Mr. Pitt s, I

76 LORD CORNWALLIS

should recommend it to your serious consideration
whether it would not be wiser, when you shall no
longer have to contend with chartered rights, to tie
their hands from doing material mischief, with-
out meddling with their Imperial dignity or their
power of naming writers, and not to encounter the
furious clamour that will be raised against annex-
ing the patronage of India to the influence of the
Crown, except in cases of the most absolute neces-
sity.

* That a Court of Directors formed of such materials
as the present can never, when left to themselves,
conduct any branch of the business of this country
properly, I will readily admit ; but under certain re-
strictions and when better constituted, it might prove
an useful check on the ambitious or corrupt designs
of some future minister. In order, however, to enable
such Directors to do this negative good, or to prevent
them doing much positive evil, they should have a
circumscribed management of the whole, and not a
permission to ruin uncontrolled the commercial ad-
vantages which Britain should derive from her
Asiatic territories.

*It will, of course, have been represented to you
that the India Company formerly was supported by
its commerce alone, and that it was then richer than
it is at present, and that when their Directors have no
longer any business with governing empires, they
may again become as thrifty merchants as heretofore^

LETTER TO DUNDAS 77

I am persuaded, however, that experience would
give a contradiction to that theory, for if they should
not have lost their commercial talents by having
been Emperors, this country is totally changed by
being under their dominion. There are now so many
Europeans residing in India, and there is such a com-
petition at every wharf of any consequence, that in
my opinion even an upright Board of Trade sitting at
Calcutta could not make advantageous contracts or
prevent the manufactures from being debased ; and
therefore, that unless the Company have able and
active Residents at the different factories, and unless
those Residents are prevented by the power of Govern-
ment from cheating them as they formerly did, London
would no longer be the principal mart for the choicest
commodities of India.

* If the proposed separation was to take place, not a
man of credit or character would stay in the Com-
pany's service, if he could avoid it ; and those who
did remain, or others who might be hereafter ap-
pointed, would be soon looked upon as an inferior
class of people to the servants acting under appoint-
ments from His Majesty. The contempt with which
they would be treated would not pass unobserved by
the natives, and would preclude the possibility of
their being of essential use, even if they were not de-
ficient in character or commercial abilities, and upon
the supposition that the Company could afford to pay
them liberally for their services. When you add to

78 LORD CORNWALLIS

the evils which I have described, and which no man
acquainted with this country will think fictitious, the
jobbing that must prevail at the India House in a
department which is in a manner given up to
plunder, you will not, I am sure, think that I have
gone too far in prophesying the bankruptcy of the
Company.

< In answer to this statement of the impossibility of
the Company's carrying on the trade when all the
other parts of the administration of the country are
taken into the hands of Government, it may be said
by people who have reflected but little on the subject^
" If the Company cannot carry on the trade, throw it
open to aU adventurers." To that mode I should
have still greater objection, as it would be very diffi-
cult for Government to prevent this unfortunate
country from being overrun by desperate specu-
lators from all parts of the British dominions. The
manufacturers would soon go to ruin, and the exports
— which would annually diminish in value — would
be sent indiscriminately to the different countries of
Europe.

* As the new system will only take place when the
rights of the present Company cease, you cannot be
charged with a violation of charters, and the attacks
of the Opposition in Parliament will therefore be
confined to an examination of its expediency and
eflSicacy. I fancy I need hardly repeat to you that
they would above all things avail themselves of any

LETTER TO DUN DAS 79

apparent attempts on your part to give an increase of
patronage to the Crown, which could not be justified
on the soundest constitutional principles, or on the
ground of evident necessity ; and could make use of
it to misrepresent your intentions and principles, and
to endeavour to influence the minds of the natives
against you.

* An addition of patronage to the Crown, to a cer-
tain degree, will, however, in my opinion, be not only
a justifiable measure, but absolutely necessary for the
future good government of this country.

' But, according to my judgment, a renewal of the
Company's Charter for the management of the terri-
torial revenues and the commerce of India for a
limited time (for instance, ten or fifteen years), and
under such stipulations as it may be thought proper
to annex as conditions, would be the wisest founda-
tion for your plan, both for your own sakes as
Ministers, and as being best calculated for securing
the greatest possible advantages to Britain from her
Indian possessions, and least likely to injure the
essential principles of our own Constitution.

* The present Court of Directors is so numerous, and
the responsibility for public conduct which falls to
the share of each individual is so small, that it can
have no great weight with any of them ; and the par-
ticipation in a profitable contract, or the means of
serving friends or providing for relations, must always
more than compensate to them for the loss that they

8o LORD CORNWALLIS

may sustain by any fluctuation that may happen in
the market price of the stock which constitutes their
qualifications. I should therefore think that it would
be very useful to the public to reduce the number of
directors to twelve or to nine; and if handsome
salaries could be annexed to those situations, I should
be clear for adopting means for their being prohibited
from having an interest directly or indirectly in con-
tracts, or in any commercial transactions whatever,
in which the Company may have the smallest con*
cem.

* At the same time, however, if one or both of these
points should be carried, I would not by any means
recommend that they should retain the power of ap-
pointing Governors, Commanders-in-Chief, or Mem-
bers of Council at any of the Presidencies ; the honour
and interest of the nation, the fate of our fleets and
armies, being too deeply staked on the conduct of
the persons holding the above-mentioned offices, to
render it safe to trust their nominations in any other
hands but those of the Executive Government of
Britain. But as this measure, though not in fact
deviating very widely from the existing arrangement
by which the King has the power of recalUng those
officers, would at first appear a strong one, and would
be vehemently opposed, I would give it every quali-
fication that the welfare and security of the country
would admit of. I would establish it by law, that
the choice of the civil Members of Council should be

LETTER TO DUNDAS 8l

Umited to Company's servants of a certain standing
(at least twelve years), which would in the mind of
every candid person leave very little room in respect
to them for ministerial patronage, and it should
be left to the Court of Directors to frame such
general Regulations for the appointment to oflSces in
India as should be consistent with the selection of
capable men, and to establish the strictest system that
they can devise of check and control upon every
article of expenditure at the different Presidencies.

*I would likewise recommend that it should be
clearly understood and declared that the Court of
Directors should have a right to expect that His
Majesty's Ministers should pay the greatest attention
to all their representations respecting the conduct of
the Governors, Commander-in-Chief, and Councillors ;
and that in case satisfactory redress should not be given
to any of their complaints of that nature, that they
should have a right to insist upon the recall of any
Governor, Commander-in-Chief, or Councillors, whom
they should name, and that the utmost facility should,
be given to them to institute prosecutions against
such Governors, &c., whose conduct may appear to
them to have been culpable, before the Court of
Judicature which has been established by Act of
Parliament for the trial of Indian delinquents.

'In regard to the miHtary arrangements, I am
clearly of opinion that the European troops should
all belong to the King, for experience has shown that

8a LORD CORNWALLIS

the Company cannot keep up an efficient European
force in India; this is a fact so notorious that no
military man who has been in this country will
venture to deny it, and I do not care how strongly
I am quoted as authority for it.

*The circumstances, however, of the native troops
are very different. It is highly expedient and indeed
absolutely necessary for the public good, that the
officers who are destined to serve in these corps
should come out at an early period of life and devote
themselves entirely to the Indian service ; a perfect
knowledge of the language, and a minute attention to
the customs and religious prejudices of the Sepoys,
being qualifications for that line which cannot be
dispensed with. Were these officers to make a part
of the King's army, it would soon become a practice
to exchange their commissions with ruined officers
from England, who would be held in contempt by
their inferior officers and in abhorrence by their
soldiers, and you need not be told how dangerous
a disaffection in our native troops would be to our
existence in this country. I think, therefore, that aa
you cannot make laws to bind the King's prerogative
in the exchange or promotions of his army, it would
be much the safest determination to continue the
native troops in the Company's service, and by doing
so you would still leave to the Court of Directors the
patronage of cadets, and of course give some popu-
larity to the measure.

LETTER TO DUNDAS 83

* The alternate line to be drawn would give to the
Court of Directors the appointment of writers to the
civil branches of the service and of cadets for the
native troops, and the power of prescribing certain
general rules under the description I have mentioned
for the disposal of offices by the Government in India,
and of calling the Governors, &c., to an immediate
account for every deviation from these rules; but
they ought to be strictly prohibited from appointing
or recommending any of their servants to succeed to
offices in this country, as such appointments or re-
commendations are more frequently granted to intrigue
and solicitation, than to a due regard to real merit or
good pretensions, and such interference at home must
always tend in some degree to weaken the authority
of the Government in India.

*XJpon the supposition of the Charters being re-
newed, it appears to me highly requisite for the
public good that the right of inspection and control
in the King's Ministers should be extended to every
branch of the Company's affairs, without any excep-
tion as to their commerce : and as altercations between
the controlling power and the Board of Directors must
always be detrimental to the public interest, whether
occasioned by improper encroachments on one side
or an obstinate or capricious resistance on the other,,
it seems pai-ticularly desirable that not only the
extent, but also the manner in which the Ministers
are to exercise the right of inspection and control

84 LORD CORNWALLIS

should be prescribed so clearly as to prevent, if pos-
sible, all grounds for misapprehension or dispute.'

The establishment of a revenue system, which if
not entirely new, presented one or more novel features
of paramount importance, was not calculated to ensure
either the prosperity of the country or the content-
ment of the people, unless measures were taken to
reform the Civil Service and to appoint as Collectors
of districts men who could be relied on as proof
against corruption. When Comwallis landed in India,
the whole service was more or less in a transition
state. It was still occupied with commercial enter-
prise, and yet its members were called on to discharge
administrative functions and to fill executive posts.
They were often remunerated by gratuities and com-
mission, and the acceptance by them of large gratui-
ties and of perquisites was common. It was the sur-
vival of an even worse state of things when men in the
high position of Members of Council had not scrupled to
accept lacks of rupees for giving a preference to one
Naw^b or pretender over another. There had been
flagrant instances of corruption at Lucknow, Benares,
and Madras, and it must be admitted that the Court
of Directors had seen and almost approved a system
under which their servants, placed in positions of
high trust and of manifold temptations, drew small
salaries and were allowed to make up for this de-
ficiency by large extra lump sums. Even when the
Governor-General represented in strong language the

THE COLLECTOR OF REVENUE 85

necessity for some reform, the Directors were still of
opinion that Collectors should be paid partly by com-
mission and partly by feed salaries, but that the larger
part of their remuneration should be the commission.

The Resident at Benares, who really wielded almost
absolute power in that Province without check or
control, drew only 1000 rupees a month, but from
monopolies in commercial and other ventures, re-
ceived besides four lacks every year. In other places,
Collectors engaged in commercial speculation under
cover of the name of some relative or friend, and it
may be said roundly, that while no Collector drew
above 1200 rupees a month, his irregular and additional
gains amounted to far more. Comwallis saw almost
at once that the only mode of preventing abuses,
maintaining discipline, and creating a sense of honour
and responsibility, was to give liberal salaries and to
confine the recipients to their proper work. Trading
was henceforth forbidden ; and if commission was
still allowed, it was calculated at so much per cent,
on the net collections. Even this regulated mode of
payment, though perfectly fair and equitable at the
time of its introduction, was eventually abolished. '

There were other anomalies in the constitution and
character of the service which could not escape
notice. The criminal administration had been left
in the hands of the Naw^b N&zim and his native
subordinates, as wiU be explained in deaUng with the
new arrangements for civil and criminal justice. The

86 LORD CORNWALLIS

Collectors from the time of Warren Hastings, besides
being responsible for the revenue, were vested with
certain judicial powers in civil cases. Comwallis
goes so far as to state that the Civil Courts of justice
throughout the whole of the Company's Provinces
had been for many years in the hands of the Com-
pany's servants. The Collector, in addition to his
revenue duties, held in this capacity what was termed
a Mdl Addlat, or court in which he decided all cases
regarding the rights of the landholders and culti-
vators, and all claims arising between them and their
servants. It was resolved to abolish these Mdl
Ad&lats, in which the civil servant was Judge as
well as Collector, and to transfer all judicial powers
and the decision of all rights and all civil suits to
regular judicial tribunals. It may here be mentioned
by anticipation that six years after the departure of
ComwaUis, Collectors were again vested with power
to settle, in a summary enquiry, all claims for the rent
of the current year due from ryots to Zamind&rs.

But with this exception the Collector, after 1793,
was confined to his proper functions, which were quite
sufficient to occupy his attention and to increase his
store of official knowledge. The districts over which
such Collectors presided were enormous in extent.
The district of Jessor touched the Twenty-four Par-
gands on one side and the Rdjsh^hl District across
the Ganges on the other ; and it was not for thirty
or forty years afterwards that the size of these and

THE COLLECTOR 87

other zillahs were curtailed by the formation of
smaller independent districts, such as Bar&sat, Bogri,
Pabn^, and others.

The Collector, to sum up, was placed by Cornwallis
in a definite, important, well-salaried post. He
was responsible for the land revenue of a vast tract,
which in amount varied from ten to twenty lacks of
rupees- He looked after the estates of minors, and of
landowners incapacitated by lunacy or other causes.
He was the Superintendent of all estates held Mas,
as it is termed, on those in which the Government had
acquired the Zaminddri or landholder's, as well as the
sovereign right. He was paymaster of pensioners
and allowances for compensation. He was the re-
cognised authority for the division of estates between
irreconcilable shareholders. He alone could appor-
tion the liability for revenue of each share. He col-
lected the tax on spirituous liquors. He was to put up
the estates of defaulting proprietors to public sale.
He was formally placed under the Board of Revenue,
with which he was regularly to correspond.

The popular idea of a Collector in England is or
was an individual with a note-book and certain forms
and schedules and demands, calling at inconvenient
times for the Queen's taxes or the parish rates, and
viewed with aversion and dislike by householders.
From the time of Cornwallis the Anglo-Indian col-
lector became a Court of Wards, as well as a Court of
Exchequer, and on his moderation, good faith, skill,

88 LORD CORNWALLIS

and management, there depended the welfare of in-
habitants who even in those epochs of forest waste
and jungle, not seldom amounted to a half or one
million of souls in a single district : together with the
realisation of the State dues.

The Perpetual Settlement and the relegation of the
Collectors to their proper and essential duties was now
accomplished. But a great deal remained to be done
before the CivU Service could be said to have entered
on the entire executive and judicial administration of
Bengal and Behar. The machinery for the detection
and punishment of crime had been left, as already
remarked, in the hands of the Naw^b N&zim, who
might be termed the titular sovereign of the country.
The consequences were ruinous to property and life.
The Faujd^r of Htigli, a metropolitan district, re-
ceived ten thousand pounds or a lack of rupees a year,
and daJcditi, or gang robbery with violence, was rife
in the very neighbourhood of Calcutta, on the confines
of the Mardthi Ditch, and indeed all over the Lower
Provinces.

Criminal trials were conducted by native Judges.
It is true that there was already a Court of Appeal
known as the Sadr Diwdni and Nizdmat Addlat,
and that the English Collector of revenue was sup-
posed to overlook the proceedings of the native
magistrates in the districts; to see that witnesses
were duly examined ; and that the proceedings were
conducted with some fairness and impartiality. But

THE CIVIL AND CRIMINAL COURTS 89

the preamble to several of the Regulations or Laws
of 1793, shows that there must have been much confu-
sion, diversity of practice, and uncertainty of jurisdic-
tion in the civil and criminal courts. Indeed, the
language of the preamble of one of these laws is so
significant and illustrative of the incompetence of
the native officers, and of the inability of the English
Collector to interfere to any good purpose, that it must
be here quoted in extenao. In Reg. IX of 1793 the
Governor-General sums up the case for a complete
change in the following terms : —

* I. Pursuant to the Regulations passed by the President
and Council on 21st August, 1772, Criminal Courts, denomi-
nated Faujddri Addlats, were established in the interior
parts of the Provinces for the trial of persons charged with
crimes or misdemeanors : and the Collectors of the revenue,
who were covenanted servants of the Company, were directed
to superintend the proceedings of the officers of those Courts,
and on trials to see that the necessary witnesses were sum-
moned and examined, that due weight was allowed to their
testimony, and that the decisions passed were fair and im-
partial. By the same Regulations, a separate and superior
Criminal Court was established at Murshidab4d, under the
denomination of the Nizdmat Ad£lat, for revising the
proceedings of the Provincial Criminal Courts in capital
cases, and the Committee of Revenue at Murshiddbdd was
vested with a control over this court, similar to that which
the Collectors of the revenue were empowered to exercise
over the Provincial Courts. Upon the abolition of the
Committee of Revenue at MurshidAbdd, the Nizdmat Adalat
was removed to Calcutta, and placed under the charge

90 LORD CORNWALLIS

of a Ddrogha or superintendent, subject to the control of
the President of the Council, who revised the sentences of
the Criminal Courts in capital cases. The above arrange-
ments continued in force, without any considerable alteration,
until 1 8th October, 1775, when the entire control over the
department of criminal justice was committed to the N4ib
N4zim. The Nizdmat Addlat was in consequence re-estab-
lished at Murshid£b4d, and the N4ib N4zim appointed
native officers, denominated Faujddrs, assisted by persons
versed in the Muhammadan law, to superintend the Criminal
Courts in the several districts, and to apprehend and bring
to trial offenders against the public peace. This system was
adhered to, without any material variation, until 6th April,
1 78 1, when the institution of Faujddrs not having answered
the intended purposes, the general establishment both of
Faujddrs, and the Thdnddte or police officers acting under
them, were abolished. FaujdAri Courts, however, were
continued in the several divisions, subject as before to the
control of the Ndib Ndzim or superintendent of the Nizdmat
Addlat, and the English judges of the Courts of Diwdni
Addlat were appointed magistrates, with a power to appre-
hend dakditis and persons charged with crimes or misde-
meanors within their respective jurisdictions and commit
them to the nearest Faujddrf Court for trial. With a view
to enable Government to superintend, in some degree, the
administration of justice in criminal cases, a separate depart-
ment was at the same time established at the Presidency,
under the control of the Governor-General, to receive monthly
returns of the sentences passed in the Faujddri Courts : and for
the assistance of the Governor-General in this duty, a Cove-
nanted Civil servant of the Company was appointed with the
official appellation of Bemembrancer to the Criminal Courts.
* From the inefficiency, however, of the authority of the

THE CIVIL AND CRIMINAL COURTS 9 1

English magistrates over the Zamdiddrs and other land-
holders, the administration of justice in criminal cases was
much impeded, whilst the Eegulation which vested the
magistrates with the power of apprehending offenders, but
without permitting them to interfere in any respect in the
trials, gave rise to a new evil. The magistrates being
obliged to deliver over to the Ddroghas, or superintendents
of the Faujddri Courts, all persons charged with a breach
of the peace, however trivial, and a considerable time often
elapsing before they were brought to trial, many of the lowest
and most indigent classes of the people were frequently
detained for a long period in prison, where their sufferings
often exceeded the degree of their criminality. The
magistrates therefore on 27th June, 1787, were vested
with authority to hear and decide on complaints of petty
affrays, abusive names, and other slight offences, and under
certain restrictions to inflict corporal punishment and impose
fines on the offenders.

* But the numerous robberies, murders, and other enormities,
which continued to be daily committed throughout the country,
evincing that the administration of criminal justice was still
in a very defective state ; and as these evils appeared to result
principally from the great delay which occurred in bringing
offenders to punishment, and to the law not being duly
enforced, as well as to other material defects in the Con-
stitution of the Criminal Courts ; and as it was essential for
the prevention of crimes not only that offenders should be
deprived of the means of eluding the pursuit of the officers
of justice, but that they should be speedily and impartially
tried when apprehended; the Governor-General in Council
passed certain Eegulations on 3rd December, 1790, estab-
lishing Courts of Circuit under the superintendence of
English Judges assisted by natives versed in the Muhammadan

97, LORD CORNWALLIS

law, for trying in the first instance persons charged with
crimes or misdemeanors, and enabling the Governor-General
and the members of the Supreme Council to sit in the
Nizdmat Addlat (which were for that purpose again re-
moved to Calcutta) and superintend the administration of
criminal justice throughout the provinces. These Regula-
tions, with the subsequent amendments, are now re-enacted
with further alterations and modifications */

The above quotation from the new Code of this
time, with other like deliverances, is illustrative of
the extreme caution with which the Government
proceeded to assume its responsibilities and to carry
out reforms. These changes to readers and adminis-
trators of the present generation seem easy and
natural. Collectors who could only advise native
Judges — English magistrates who might apprehend
and yet not try criminals — a Government which

^ The author of this memoir in his early years of service discovered
some of the old records of those very Criminal Courts, presided over by
these Faujd^s, still in existence, and on inspecting them he found what
is known as the Itiibakdrl, or finding and sentence of the Court. It was
very brief and concise, and ended with the direction that the prisoner
Itaid bashad: in other words, that he was to be sent to prison. No term
whatever was specified, and there was a tradition amongst the older
native employes of the magistrates' office as late as the year 1845,
of an individual who, having been sentenced to indefinite imprison-
ment for stealing some of a neighbour's rice crop, remained in durance
for many years. It must be added that the rules of prison discipline
were neither then, nor for many years afterwards, of a strict nature.
Prisoners were locked up at night, but during the day they had
a good deal of liberty, walked about the b^zdirs, did or pretended to
do a little work in repairing the roads and clearing out the ditches
of this Station, saw their friends, and often obtained tobacco, sweet-
meats, and other indulgences.

THE CIVIL AND CRIMINAL COURTS 93

acted as a sort of referee, which might prevent unjust
sentences in capital cases, but could not interfere to
any valid purpose in the earlier stages of an assize,
were evidently not the agencies fitted to deal with
a population which, however unwarlike and generally
tractable, contained in towns and Tillages many of
the elements of crime and disorder. Comwallis, after
some tentative measures, proceeded to map out the
whole of the country into districts presided over by
English Judges and Magistrates. In some twenty-five
of these districts or zillahs he appointed a Civil and
Sessions Judge. In four of the principal cities — ^that
is^ in Calcutta, Patn&, Dacca, and Murshiddb&d — ^he
established Provincial Courts of Appeal, or courts in-
termediate between the Court of the Zillah and the
Sadr Court, or highest and ultimate tribunal. An-
other law extended and defined the jurisdiction of the
last-mentioned court. Distinct and, in some instances,
minute rules of procedure were incorporated in these
laws.

Magistrates with judicial powers of reasonable
extent were appointed to ea^ch district, and Darogahs
or heads of police were placed under them for the
prevention and detection of crime. In civil suits the
English Judge was empowered to hear and decide all
suits regarding real and personal property, land rents,
debts, a^ccounts, partnerships, marriage, caste, inheri-'
tance, damages, and, in shorty aU oases of a civil na-
ture. In criminal trials the Code to be followed was

94 LORD CORNWALUS

the Muhammadan Code ; but means were at once taken
to mitigate its harshness and to correct its absurdities.
Barbarous punishments, such as mutilation, were not
allowed. The rules of Muhammadan evidence were
modified and brought into harmony with those of
English courts. In civil cases between Hindus the
Judge was assisted by a native Pandit, who advised
on matters of inheritance, mariiage, caste, and the
like. The Muhammadan law similarly was applied
in cases where both parties were Musalm&ns. When
the litigants were of different creeds, the English Judge
was to follow the dictates of equity and good con-
science. Of his native coadjutors, the Pandit was
the first to be abolished, though he lasted till 1821.
But the ofiice of Kdzi or Maulavi remained in some
districts down to the introduction of the Penal Code
and the Code of Criminal Procedure in i860.

While attempts had been made by Warren Hastings
and by Comwallifl himself to improve the civil and
criminal administration of the province, and though
a few changes and improvements had been intro-
duced all tending to vest authority more and more
in the haads of Englishmen, the system in its fuhiess
dates from 1793, ^^ ^^^ y^^x of the Comwallis
administration. Every civil servant from the begin-
ning of this century has looked on this date as the
commencement of a new era. He may have heard
of other * General Regulations,* but they were never
printed or circulated for his use and guidance.

THE CORNWALLIS CODE 95

The Comwallis Code, whether for revenue, police,
criminal and civil justice, or other functions, de-
fined and set bounds to authority, created procedure,
by a regular system of appeal guarded against the
miscarriage of justice, and founded the Civil Service
of India as it exists to this day. This Code has been
the basis of every attempt to introduce law and order
into each successive acquisition of districts and king-
doms. Very possibly its provisions were in some
instances cumbrous and minute^ and not suited to
races more manly and warlike and less prone to
litigation and chicanery than the population of Cen-
tral and Lower Bengal. Some of its sections and
clauses were ruthlessly put aside when new, simple,
and equitable Codes had to be suited to purely savage
or warlike tribes. It may be also said that criminals
were allowed a fatal facility of appeal, which in the
working proved disadvantageous to the general wel-
fare of the community. But the Comwallis Code was
dictated by an anxious desire to conciliate Hindus
and Muhammadans, to soothe their feelings, to avoid
offence to religious and social prejudices, and at the
same time to substitute order, method, and system
for anarchy, chaos, and the irregular and uncontroUed
exercise of judicial power. Objections have occa-
sionally been made to the phraseology of these Regu-
lations, and doubtless they suffer by comparison with
the precise, correct, and luminous language of the
later Acts dating from 1833, when the legislation of

g6 LORD CORNWALLIS

the Indian Qovemment was framed by such high
authorities as Macaulay and Cameron, or Maine and
Stephen in our own days. But we should remember
that the Indian Government a century ago had to deal
with a community ruled by despots and unacquainted

training of the officials who were to administer the
new laws was imperfect. Many of the Collectors and
Magistrates began to learn their business when they
began to work, and had to arrive at system and
method through the detection of errors and mistakes.

The Regulations in consequence were not merely
the expression of what in future was to be the revenue
or the criminal law of the land. The preambles, and
occasionally some of the sections, contained reasons
and explanations for the new procedure. Some are
more in the nature of a manifesto from the Ruling
Power than a law. The Governor-General reviewed
the past, pointed out the errors discovered in practice,
and arising out of imperfect knowledge of the wants of
the people, and then proceeded to apply a legislative
remedy.

The Perpetual Settlement itself took the form of
a Proclamation which became Regulation I in the
Code. The Hindus, ' who form the body of the
people,' are expressly informed that while agriculture
then as now is the principal element in the wealth of
the country, it is the object of the British Government
to extend commerce, to improve judicial procedure.

THE COLLECTOR 97

and to provide against the recurrence of inundation
and drought.

In addition to his revenue and judicial Code, Lord
Cornwallis laid it down as a rule that the official
acts of the Collectors might be challenged in the
Civil Courts of the country ; that Government might
be sued, like any private individual, for exactions or
infringements of the rights of landholders; and that
such suits could only be cognizable by Judges who
had no direct or personal interest in enforcing the
financial claims of Government. Practically the
Governor-General did away with any idea that a
Collector was a sort of pro-consul whose irregularities
were exempt from the jurisdiction of the ordinary tri-
bunals, and who was accountable only to the Executive
which he served. Many important subjects, political
and military, were of course exempted from the cog-
nizance of the law courts. But from 1793, ^ ^ ^^^
related to landed and personal property, the Govern-
ment, in the language of one of the Regulations,
'divested itself of the power of infringing in its
executive capacity on the rights and privileges'
which, in its legislative capacity, it had conferred on
the landholders.

Divers other important questions continued to occupy
the attention of Cornwallis. There was considerable
jealousy between the English officers of the King's
troops or Royals, as they were termed, and the officers
of native infantry. The sovereign of England was

98 LORD CORNWALLIS

not likely ever to give up the notion that officers
bearing his commission were entitled to a pre-emin*
ence over those who held their appointments from a
commercial body of his own subjects. It was calcu-
lated that at that epoch the whole European and
native forces of Bengal and Madras did not exceed
70,000 men. Of these, 5000 only were King's troops ;
the Company's * Europeans,* or Englishmen recruited
by the Company in England, were about the same in
number.

These latter were * a set of wretched objects ; ' and
Comwallis saw at once that in order to raise them
to the standard, the discipline, and the efficiency
to which they subsequently attained, the Directors
should be allowed to recruit openly, and the recruits
should be subjected to martial law, and be placed
under the command of their own officers until the date
of their embarkation for the East. Dundas looked
far ahead, and actually prepared a memorandum for
the amalgamation of the Royal and the Company's
troops into one army. Comwallis admitted that if
the Company's troops consisted only of Englishmen
the amalgamation would be a very easy matter. But
he saw a great difficulty in dealing with nearly four
hundred officers serving in native regiments, who
were, as a rule, the best men in the army, and who
were well acquainted with the languages, manners^
and religious customs of the Sepoys. So the amal-
gamation was deferred for three quarters of a century.

THE KING'S TROOPS 99

but a scheme originating with Comwallis was eventu-
ally carried out, by which the Company's officers
were allowed to take rank equally with those of the
Royal regiments, according to the dates of their re-
spective commissions, while serving in India. Jealousy
between the two sets of officers — though always kept
within bounds in action and in a campaign, owing to
a sense of military subordination — occasionally came
to the surface in peaceful times ; but it would not
be easy to find any instances in which military
operations were impeded or marred by any such
social antipathy. Some of the most signal victories
in India have been gained by Company's officers
commanding a combined force of the soldiers of the
Sovereign and the Sepoys of the Company. With all
his philanthropy and considerate regard for the feel-
ings of the natives, Comwallis was quite alive to one
danger to which India has never at any time been
unexposed.

*It must be universally admitted,' he tells the
Court of Directors, *that without a large and well-
regulated body of Europeans, our hold of these valu-
able dominions must be very insecure. It cannot be
expected that even the best of treatment would con-
stantly conciliate the willing obedience of so vast a
body of people, differing from ourselves in almost
every circumstance of laws, religion, and customs ;
and oppression of individuals, errors of government,
and several other unforeseen causes, will no doubt

^ I

100 LORD CORNIVALLIS^

arouse an inclination to revolt. On such occasions it
would not be wise to place great dependence upon
their countrymen who compose the native regiments
to secure their subjection/ It was not the Govemor-
Oeneral's last utterance, but it might be said,
* Ilia tanquam cycnea fuit . . . hominis vox et
oratio/

CHAPTER V

Private Life and Social Customs

While Comwallis's relations with Henry Dundas
were, even when they differed, of the most amicable
nature, and while their correspondence is replete
with instructive and statesmanlike views on most of
the vital portions of Indian administration, it is clear
that his endeavours to promote the efficiency of the
Civil Service were sorely hampered by requests from
sundry high personages in England to promote their
relatives and friends. The Civil Service was not
then regularly fenced in by exclusive rules and rigid
restrictions, and there were divers occasions on which
the Head of the Government might exercise his dis-
cretion in giving appointments to candidates who
had not been sent out by the Court, or who had gone
out on their own account, as the saying was. In the
hands of a strong and just man it was not likely
that the privilege of selection outside the ranks of
the service would be abused. But peers and other ac-
quaintances had not the slightest hesitation in writing
out to Cornwallis to provide for Mr. Such-a-one in
some lucrative and easy post. To one peer he had
to reply that he had never heard of a certain clerical

I02 LORD CORNWALLIS

friend, but unless he had been sent out by the Court
of Directors it was not in his power to promote him.

In the same letter he says he should be glad to
appoint a Mr. Beachcroft to a Commercial Residency
if he were likely to succeed in it : * But here, my lord,
we are in the habit of looking for the man for the
place, and not for the place for the man.' Another
peer recommends a young gentleman named Kamus,
a late page of honour to the King. He went out as a
free merchant. The name of Bamus occurs about
this time in the list of Company's servants. But the
most flagrant attempt in this direction was made by
the Prince of Wales. He had a proUg^ named Treves,
whose ambition it was to be appointed to the Add-
lat, or Civil Court of Benares. The post at that time
was jfilled by ' a black named Ali Cann.' This gentle-
man's right name was Ali Ibrdhim Kh^, a man of
real talent and universally respected. Cornwallis
answers His Boyal Highness to the effect that though
he was anxious to put the Company's servants at
the head of both the Civil and Criminal Courts, it
would be a difficult and unpopular measure to remove
the incumbent, and that if AH EMn were to die to-
morrow, it would be impossible to give this appoint-
ment to Mr. Treves, looking to his standing in the
service, as well as the impropriety of appointing so
young a man to a situation of so much gravity and
importance.

Again, a year afterwards, the Prince of Wales

PATRONAGE I03

recommends a young Mr. Watts, who wanted to get
a rank in the ' regulars ' equal to what he had in the
Company's army. But he was told civilly that this
could not be done, and Mr. Watts afterwards ob-
tained a commission in a West India regiment. These
recommendations, in a letter to his brother the
Bishop of Lichfield, are treated by the Governor-
General as 'infamous and unjustifiable jobs.'

Other difliculties had to be met and overcome.
On one occasion the Prince recommends a young
man going out as a cadet, but in a harmless way and
for such social notice as the Governor-General may
think fit. On another point the Court of Directors
very properly came to his aid. The Court had strong
objections to recognise as agents persons accredited
in England by such potentates as the Nawdb of
Bengal and the E.dj4 of Tanjore. The Directors held
that all communications from Princes or Chiefs deem-
ing themselves aggrieved, should be preferred only
through the regular channel of the Indian Govern-
ment. And this sound precedent has rarely been set
aside, and never without risk and prejudice to good
administration. Acting in the same spirit, Com-
wallis absolutely refused to forward a complimentary
letter from the Nawdb Vizier of Oudh, accompanied
by 25,000 rupees, for Dr. WiUis, the King's physician*

A tmzr of loi gold mohurs, as a congratulatory
offering from an inferior to a superior, with a sum of
7000 rupees for Dr. Willis, and an additional 7000

104 LORD CORNWALLIS

rupees for the poor in the neighbourhood of the
King's palace, transmitted by the Naw&b of Bengal,
were all courteously but firmly refused. The Governor-
General contented himself with sending the letters
which accompanied these preaente, to His Majesty
the King of England.

Comwallis's annoyance at the importunities of
friends on behalf of candidates for oflBice, breaks out
amusingly in the letter to Lord Sydney already
quoted : * I think I told you how much Lord Ailes-
bury had distressed me by sending out Mr. Ritso.
He is now wilting in the secretary's office for 100
or 250 rupees per month, and I do not see the proba-
bility of my being able to give him anything better,
without deserving to be impeached. I am still per-
secuted every day by people coming out with letters
to me, who either get into jail or stai-ve in the foreign
Settlements. For God's sake do all in your power to
stop this madness.' The Mr. Ritso alluded to was
evidently employed in the secretariat as a copyist, or
what used to be denominated a section- writer. Men
of this class in later days were generally EuraMans,
and they were remunerated by payment for so many
words. Originally the rate was 750 words the rupee,
but secretaries of an economical turn raised the rate
of work to J 400 words.

It is pleasant after this denunciation of jobbery
to turn to letters from Warren Hastings to the
Governor-General. There are several allusions, in

WARREN HASTINGS 1 05

the Ross edition of the Correspondence, to the im-
peachment of the ex-Governor-General ; and the
editor expressly states that Comwallis entertained a
very high opinion of his eminent and ill-treated
predecessor. The public journals of the time show
that the enlightened opinion of the Settlement, as it
was termed, was entirely on the side of Hastings ;
and at the news of his acquittal, the city of Calcutta
was illuminated, and messages of congratulation were
forwarded by a large number of inhabitants convened
at a public meeting by the sheriff. Macaulay was
well informed when he wrote that every ship that
sailed from Calcutta brought home a * cuddy-full ' of
friends and admirers of Hastings. But Comwallis
would take no active part in getting up testimonials
to character, and the letter referring to this determina-
tion is so honourable to both Statesmen, that it is worth
quoting. On the 2 2nd of April, t 790, Hastings writes: —
* Of thanks I have a large debt due from me to
your Lordship for many and substantial favours : for
your great goodness to my old domesticks ; for your
distinguished notice of my friends ; and for the liberal
manner in which you were pleased to proclaim your
allowance of the testimonials which were subscribed
in my favour, and to authenticate them by the trans-
mission of them to the Court of Directors. . . . You
might, my Lord, have done more to indicate your
countenance of those subscriptions, had I been en-
titled to such a proof of your personfil good- will;

Io6 LORD CORNWALLIS

but though I should have felt as I ought for the
motive, I should have regretted that you had yielded
to it. Such a proceeding would have been construed
into a transgression of the line of public duty, and have
defeated its own purpose, by inducing a suspicion that
the testimonials were extorted by the influence of
authority. Considering the subject in its relation to
your Lordship, I applaud the nice discretion with
which you tempered a conduct impelled by a desire to
promote the redress of an injured character. Regard-
Lg it merely as it affected myself, I am thankful
for what you did, and for stopping precisely where
you did stop.'

In January of the same year (1788) Comwallis had
written to Lord Sydney : * Without entering into the
merits of the case, I am very sorry that things have
gone so much against poor Hastings, for he certainly
has many amiable qualities ;' and the writer follows
this up by some uncomplimentary remarks about
Impey. This may be a surprise to readers drawing
their notions of Hastings from Macaulay, who thought
*his heai*t was somewhat hard.' The real truth is
that Hastings, confronted with some spiteful adver-
saries, was a man of strong affections, and had a circle
of many devoted and high-minded Mends. His cha-
racter and conduct have been recently placed in a
very different light by Sir Fitzjames Stephen and Sir
Alfred Lyall, and the time is possibly coming when
men of the present generation may regret to think

PRIVATE LIFE 1 07

that their forefathers were his mistaken and relent-
less foes.

The private life of Comwallis in his high office was
pure and consistent, and marked by a wish to avoid
display whenever this could be done without a disregard
of the hospitality and ceremony looked for at Govern-
ment House. The editor of the Correspondence notes
that Cornwallis rose early, as some officials still do in
India, all the year round; mounted a hard-trotting
horse ; and took a long ride attended by his military
secretary and a groom. At table he was abstemious
and even sparing in his diet. The soundest medical
authorities hold that health in India is best preserved
by a generous diet not carried to excess. It has been
said by Sir John Kaye that there is scarcely room
for personal luxury in India. What, indeed, are
superfluities in temperate climates are the absolute
necessaries for Indian existence and comfort. The
youngest civilian or subaltern writes, eats, and usually
sleeps under a punkah for more than half the year,
and changes his linen twice in the day, equally with
the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief. Eoutine
and regularity are, in fact, prescribed by the inexor-
able laws of nature for the greater part of the year.

As a general rule it may be laid down, that most
men in India go to bed about 10.30 or 11 and rise
earlier than they do in England; and that very
much of the best work in India, in the shape of
Minutes, judgments, reports, correspondence with

I08 LORD CORNWALLIS

superiors and subordinates, and visits to jails and
police-stations, is accomplished before breakfast.

Comwallis writes to his son, Lord Brome, an
Etonian, that life at Calcutta was perfect * clockwork.'
* I get on horseback just as the dawn of day begins to
appear, ride on the same road and the same distance,
pass the whole forenoon after my return from riding
in doing business, and almost exactly the same por-
tion of time every day at table, drive out in a phaeton
a little before sunset, then write or read over letters
or papers on business for two hours ; sit down at
nine with two or three officers of my family to some
fruit and a biscuit, and go to bed soon after the clock
strikes ten. I don't think the greatest sap at Eton
can lead a duller life than this.' In explanation of
the above it should be remembered that the usual
dinner-hour at Calcutta in those days was 4 p.m., and
the evening meal alluded to in the above letter was a
kind of light supper. Hours have long altered much
for the better, and nearly everybody in India dines
at 8 p.m., or at 7.30 at earliest, after the evening ride
or drive.

By many persons the early morning ride has now
been given up, at least during the hot weather and
rains. In the glorious cold season, the race-course
and the cantonment, the Mall and the parade, are
full of life and animation. In those times no hill-
stations had been acquired or discovered. There were
no steamers to convey invalids or hard- worked officials

PRIVATE LIFE 109

to Madras, Sangoon, Singapur, or Galle, for a week
or fortnight's sea air. Tlie splendid Government
House which overlooks the Esplanade of Calcutta,
was a later creation of Lord Wellesley, and there
was no suburban retreat, like the country house at
Barrackpur, to which the Viceroy could retire after
the weekly council on Friday to the following Mon-
day or Tuesday. Comwallis, however, made the best
of his dull life, as Warren Hastings had done before
him, and many Judges, Councillors, secretaries and
staff-officers have done since. Sir William Jones, the
great Orientalist and Judge, who was consulted by
the Governor-General on proposed changes in the
criminal law, lived at Garden Reach, three or four
miles out of Calcutta, and he also had his country
house at Krishnagar, the head Station of the district
Nadiyd, sixty miles off, easily reached by boat or
palanquin. The ruins of this house were plainly
visible forty years ago in the grounds now occupied
by the Krishnagar College. Comwallis, though he
did not anticipate the ceremonial and show of Lord
Wellesley who attended public worship on Sunday in
his robes of state, and who issued an order prohibiting
all servants of Government from horse-racing on
Sunday, set an excellent example of public morality.
Nor was he niggardly in public entertainments.
He writes, in 1792, to his brother the Bishop, that
he had been considerably out of pocket by the war
with Tip6. *I spent ^^27,360, reckoning the current

110 LORD CORNWALLIS

rupee at two shillings, between the ist of December,
1790, and the 31st of July, 1792, besides the wine
from England^ and two Arabian horses for which I
am to give English hunters/ The general simplicity
of Comwallis*s habits was a well-remembered tradi-
tion in Calcutta society, and is happily hit off in
some excellent stanzas by the late H. M. Parker,
Bengal C. S. ^, in his Elegy on Mr. Simms, an imagi-
nary Tim Linkinwater, clerk in one of the great mer-
cantile houses, as follows : —

^And he was full of anecdote, and spiced his prime

pale ale
With many a curious bit of talk and many a curious

tale : —
How Dexter* ate his buttons off; and in a one-horse-

chay
My Lord Comwallis drove about; Alack and well-a-day.'

This tradition obviously alludes to the unosten-
tatious habits of the man. As the head of society he
gave sumptuous entertainments on public festivals
and holidays, as the subjoined extracts from the
newspapers of the day attest ^ : —

* A very large and respectable company, in conse-
quence of the invitation given by the Right Honour-
able the Governor-General, assembled on New Year's
Day at the old Court House Street, where an elegant

^ Bole Pongie, 2 yols. By Heniy Meredith Parker^ Megy on Mr»
Simms.
' Dexter was a livery-stable keeper at the end of the last century.
' Selections from Calcutta Gazette, By the Author.

PRIVATE LIFE III

dinner was prepared. The toasts were, as usual,
echoed from the cannon's mouth, and merited this
distinction from their loyalty and patriotism. In
the evening the ball exhibited a circle less extensive,
but equally brilliant and beautiful, with that which
graced the entertainment in honour of the King's
birthday. Lady Chambers and Col. Pearse danced
the first minuet, and the succeeding ones continued
till about half after eleven o'clock, when the supper
tables presented every requisite to gratify the most
refined epicurean.'

The King's birthday was the 4th of June, but was
kept in Calcutta in the cold season. Colonel Pearse
was a distinguished officer of artillery, and Lady
Chambers was the wife of Sir Robert Chambers, one
of the Puisne Judges of the Supreme Court.

Comwallis does not appear to have found the time
or to have acknowledged the necessity for many
visits to the interior. Lord Wellesley spent months
in a tedious journey to the North- West Provinces, by
boat, stopping at all the principal stations on the
Ganges. But Comwallis for two seasons was much
occupied in the Madras Presidency with the campaign
against Tipii. And during the earlier years of his
administration, the work that he had to do was
precisely of that kind which could best be accom-
plished by conference with his colleagues, and by
an exchange of notes and Minutes. Until he had
reformed and re-constituted the Civil Service, and

Iia LORD CORNWALLIS

had laid down the principles which were to guide the
Government in assessing and collecting the revenue,
there was reaUy no department to overhaul or inspect.
Personal inspection of the records at Murshiddbdd,
Fatn&, and Dacca, would have given him nothing that
he could not equally well obtain at the Presidency ;
and except once, there was no necessity for those visits
to the frontier and to large centres of civilisation, which
have become a part of the regular duty of Viceroys
and Governors, and by which the whole machinery
of administration is examined, tested, and improved.

It has been shown that the Governor-General,
besides being President of the Board of Revenue,
was also ex ojfficio a member of the Sadr Courts
or Highest Civil and Criminal Court of Appeal.
In one of the old reports of the decisions of that
tribunal, it is expressly mentioned that the Governor-
General was present as a member of the Court. But
in all probability he took no active part in any dis-
cussion or argument, and merely went on a solitary
occasion as a matter of form. More remarkable is it
that in his letters there is no mention of the practice
of duelling, which from contemporary records and
newspapers was then very prevalent in India. Per-
haps to a military officer such events appeared matters
of course, required by the prevailing code of honour.
But he thought much of the condition and treatment
of the natives, and when the officers of a court-martial
acquitted one of their comrades charged with the

PRIVATE LIFE 113

brutal treatment of a poor native, in the teeth of the
clearest evidence, the Governor-General rebuked the
offenders in a scathing Minute which might have
come from the pen of Dalhousie or Canning.

Allusions to sport occur occasionally. The par-
tridge shooting at Culford was good, especially in
November and December. And as the practice of
driving birds was then unknown/it may be presumed
that there was more cover in the fields than we see
anywhere at present. But we do not find any men-
tion of a tiger, a deer, or a buffalo hunt in any of the
most familiar correspondence, though districts now
entirely cleared of tree and grass jungle, numbering
countless villages and containing a population of 500
souls to the square mile, were then the haunts of deer,
wild boars, leopards, and tigers.

Some further details of the social condition of Cal-
cutta are subjoined. They illustrate the habits and
fashions of our grandfathers in India^ and shed a
pleasant light on the character and position of the
Governor-General.

CornwaUis was not so taken up with big questions
that he could find no time for measures affecting the
health and comfort of the . residents of Calcutta.
Within a year of his arrival he, as Governor of Fort
William— an oflSce held with but independent of that
of the Governor-Generalship — forbade inmates of the
Fort to use flaring links and torches, but allowed the
use of lanterns with candles along the ramparts and

114 LORD CORNWALLIS

in the streets. He tells gangs of Coffires, Manilla
men and Malays, that as they had been guilty of
great irregularities, and had committed outrages in
Calcutta and its environs, they should ship themselves
off, before a certain date, lest a worse thing befall
them.

He finds time to witness the artillery practice
with mortars and shells at Dum Dum, under the
direction of Colonel Pearse. He attends the consecra-
tion of the new church, which is now known as the
old Cathedral to distinguish it from the edifice built in
the episcopate of Bishop Wilson. In the year 1787
he visited Benares, going up the Ganges in the State
barge, and it was justly considered a marvellous rate
of progress when an editor could record that including
stoppages at divers stations on the river, Krishnagar,
Bh&galpur, Patn&, and others, he arrived at Benares
in a month. One result of this visit was that he pro-
hibited not only Europeans generally, but persons in
the civil and miUtary services, from proceeding beyond
Baks&r without an official pass. The tour also brought
to his notice the melancholy fact that many of the
subalterns in the army had got deeply into debt,
owing to dissipation and extravagance. This state of
things had been made the subject of complaint by a
respectable English merchant stationed at Cawnpur,
who had lent divers sums to officers and had no means
of recovering his debts except by a tedious journey to
Calcutta and an action in the Supreme Court.

PRIVATE LIFE I15

It was not indeed till the time of Lord Auckland
that all Englishmen in the interior were made amen-
able to the ordinary Civil Courts of the country. What
Comwallis could then do was to warn the indebted
officers that he might take steps to bring them within
or near the jurisdiction of the only Court that could
take cognizance of such claims. At the same time
officers of the army in general were further warned
against opposing sheriffs' officers in the execution of
their duty 'at any of the Stations, but even in the
most remote districts of the Province.' It may, how^
ever, be doubted whether such functionaries were
likely to be found serving processes and executing
warrants in Upper India or anywhere except in
the immediate neighbourhood of Calcutta. Then
we have notices of more dinners, balls, suppers, and
entertainments, and an instructive commentary on
the inefficiency of the police while in native hands, in
the occurrence of a dakditi in the very heart of Cal-
cutta, when the robbers carried off some 4000 rupees.

A Proclamation against slavery by the Govemor-
Gleneral in Council shows that the practice of kid-
napping children and sending them into the interior,
or carrying them off to foreign parts, must have been
not uncommon. Another order prohibited the sale
and transport of guns, cannon, and warlike stores to
any part of India without a pass. A third establishes
a Government Stud in the district of Tirh6t, and in-
vites owners of mares to send their animals to the

H 7,

Il6 LORD CORNWALLIS

superintendent. This establishment existed down to
very recent times. The financial difficulties under
which Comwallis and his successors laboured are
illustrated by notifications that promissory notes issued
for three or four months bore interest at twelve per
cent.; and in no case does it seem that Government
could raise money at a less interest than six per cent.
Eight and ten per cent, were not uncommon. At one
period during the campaign of 1791 against Tipti,
the Court of Directors thought it necessary to send
out specie to Madras to the amount of half a million.

It is somewhat remarkable that there is no record
of any public demonstration at the time when Com-
wallis gave up his high office. On August 15, 1793,
he left Government House, spent the day with his
successor, Sir John Shore, at Garden Beach, and
embai'ked on a Pilot schooner, which was to take him
to his ship lying off Kedgeree. But the campaign
ending with Seringapatam and his return from Madras
had previously been the occasion of great festivities.
Englishmen and natives presented him with loyal
addresses. Odes were published in the newspapers.
The officers stationed at Fort William invited him to
a splendid ball and supper at the theatre, which was
appropriately decorated, so says the chronicler of this
event, with busts of Augustus and Trajan, together
with the restoration of the Boman eagle and standards
to the former, and the submission of the Dacian chiefs
to the latter Emperor. A year after Cornwallis's retire-

RETURN HOME 1 1 7

ment his health was still drunk at the annual dinner
given on St. Andrew's day, with all the waimth usually
displayed by Scotchmen on such festive occasions.

There can be no doubt that in an administration
of six years Comwallis had never forfeited the
regard and esteem of the English community, while
he had secured a place in the memory of the natives
by devoting a large portion of his time to their best
interests. His position as Chief of the army as well
as Governor-General at the head of the Civil Service,
and the ^novitas regni, offered him advantages which in
the case of a modem Viceroy it would be vain to expect.
This portion of the memoir may fittingly be concluded
with his reply to an address from the British inhabi-
tants of Calcutta, forwarded to him through the Court
of Directors, a year and a half after he had left India.

Writing on the i6th of April, 1795, to th^ chairman
of the Calcutta meeting, he says : —

* I beg leave to trouble you to inform the gentlemen
who signed the address that I feel myself no less
flattered and honoured by the favourable opinion
which so respectable a body of people have been
pleased to deduce of my public and private conduct
in the government of Bengal, than by the kind and cor-
dial terms in which that opinion has been expressed.

'I likewise request that you and all the other
subscribers will believe that I shall ever remember
through life how much I was indebted to the zeal and
abilities of many of the gentlemen who signed the

Il8 LORD CORNWALLIS

address, for the success of several of the most im-
portant and useful measures of my Government, and
that I shall consider myself fortunate if it should at
any time be in my power to mark my personal regard
for those individuals who have a particular claim to
my esteem and gratitude, or to continue in any degree
to promote the general prosperity of the British in-
habitants of Calcutta.'

Shortly after this reply reached Bengal, the inhabi-
tants of Calcutta were forwarding a congratulatory
address to Warren Hastings on his final acquittal
from the impeachment of Burke. Almost the last
despatch of Comwallis to the Court of Directors is
dated from Madras in September, 1793. He tells
them that on the Declaration of War against Eng-
land and Holland by the French, he had taken
immediate steps for the reduction of Pondicherry and
the other French settlements, which had been crowned
with success ; and in all the bustle of departure, he
finds time to address a letter of thanks to Sir John
Shore, who had been his right hand and chief adviser.
Comwallis left Madras on the loth of October, 1793,
and he came to an anchor in the Swallow packet, in
Torbay, on the 3rd of February, 1794. He had ac-
complished a great work in settling the land revenue
system of Bengal on an intelligible basis. He had
entirely changed the character of the Civil Service.
He longed for a little peace and quiet; but there
was still much work before him.

CHAPTER VI

The Perpetual Settlement of Benares

One of the immediate consequences of the introduc-
tion of the Perpetual Settlement into the Lower
Provinces was its extension to the Province of Be-
nares. This was accomplished by Sir John Shore,
Cornwallis's successor. But the opinion formed by
Comwallis himself as to the state of the Province is
so significant that it ought to be quoted. Writing in
1787, on two separate occasions, he delivers himself
as follows : —

' Benares on its present system must be a scene of
the grossest corruption and mismanagement. There
could be no reason for not placing it under the Board
of Revenue like other Zamlnd&ris, except the con-
sideration of the Governor-General losing so much
patronage. It would be better for the Zamfnd&r, the
inhabitants, and the country, and will probably soon
take place. I am not enough versed in all the secrets
of Benares to enter into a minute detail of them at
present. I propose, if no untoward circumstances
happen to prevent it, to visit the upper Stations this

I20 LORD CORNWALLIS

year, and to set out at the end of July for that
purpose. It will be material that I should get all
possible information the first year.'

Again he writes ; —

* 111 as I thought of the late system of Benares, I
found it on enquiry much worse than I could have
conceived. The Resident, although not regularly in-
vested with any power, enjoyed the almost absolute
government of the country without control. His
emoluments, besides the thousand rupees per month
allowed him by the Company, certainly amounted to
little less than four lacks a year, exclusive of the
complete monopoly of the whole commerce of the
country, with the power of granting parwdnds, &c.
It has been generally supposed that in return for all
these good things, the Residents at Benares have not
been ungrateful to the friends of the Governor-
General. I have no reason to suppose that Mr. .

took more than his predecessors — God knows what he
gave ; but as he was on bad terms with the Bdj& and
his servants, and as new measures are more likely to
succeed with new men, I thought it better to remove
him. Although many persons were desirous, nay
even importunate, to show their zeal for the Com-
pany's service by undertaking this office, it was not
very easy for me to find a successor to my mind. For
I could not venture to lower the authority of the Resi-
dent too abruptly, from apprehension of losing our
revenue; and as the Rdjd is a fool, his servants

SETTLEMENT OF BENARES 121

rogues, every native of Hindustan (I really believe)
corrupt, and Benares 600 miles from Calcutta, there
was a danger, unless it was put into good hands,
of the old system being in some degree continued.

'As I had the prosperity of Benares most exceedingly
at heart, and as I felt that nothing could tend so much
as a good management of that Province to raise our
character and reputation in the remotest parts of
Hindustan, I determined on this occasion to make a
very great sacrifice, and, much against his own will,
appointed Mr. Jonathan Duncan, the Secretary of
the Public and Revenue departments, to that office.
Perhaps you are not acquainted with Mr. Duncan's
character : he is held in the highest estimation by
every man, both European and native, in Bengal, and,
next to Mr. Shore, was more capable of assisting me,
particularly in revenue matters, than any man in this
country. I am sorry to say that I have every reason
to believe that at present almost all the Collectors are,
under the name of some relation or friend, deeply
engaged in commerce, and, by their influence as Col-
lectors and Judges of Addlat, they become the most
dangerous enemies to the Company's Interest and the
greatest oppressors of the manufactures. I hope you
will approve of the additional allowances and the
commission we have given to the Collectors, for with-
out them it was absolutely impossible that an honest
man could acquire the most moderate competency.
After this liberality, I make no scruple in issuing the

122 LORD CORNWALLIS

Bevenue Regulations and orders against engaging in
trade, which you will read, and I promise you that I
will make an example of the first offender that I can
catch.'

The development of the measure for the Permanent
Settlement of Benares Province received the assent
of Sir John Shore in March, 1795. From the laws
and Regulations of 1795 there is good ground to
infer that the measure had been adequately dis-
cussed and considered, and that the same prosperous
results were looked for in the contentment of the
landholders, the spread of agriculture, and the
stability of the Government. Indeed, the Regula-
tions of that time applicable to Benares, reveal a
somewhat different state of things from what existed
certainly in Lower Bengal, and to some extent in
Behar ; and they bristle with terms, titles, and phrases
of a new kind, and provide for rights, interests, and
customs of a cognate character to those of the Do&b
of Hindustd^n. It seems that although a high official
styled the Resident had been stationed at Benares
before the year 1781, he had not been allowed to
interfere in any way with the Settlement and collec-
tion of the revenue till the year 1787. The Rdjd
Mahip Ndrdyan, a nephew of the celebrated Chait
Singh, administered the Province, with the aid of Ndibs
or deputies. In the last-mentioned year this duty
was made over to the Resident, and he collected the
dues of Government through functionaries styled

SETTLEMENT OF BENARES 123

Aumils, whose position was analogous to those
farmers in the Lower Provinces who were not Raj&a
or hereditary Zaminddrs. Settlements for one year
and for five years were made through these function-
aries.

Rules were laid down for the valuation of crops
where the revenue was usually paid in kind by
a division of the produce ; for the consolidation of
all extra cesses into one payment with the original
rent ; for the differences between the old and the new
form of the measuring rod and the old and new
bighds^ or portions of an acre ; and for divers other
matters calculated to • remedy abuses, to prevent
oppression, and to promote prosperity and peace. At
the same time, it was provided that the AmUls or
farmers of the revenue were to look to the Zamin-
ddrs or hereditary landholders for the realisation of
the revenue ; and here, for the first time in our revenue
phraseology, we must interpret this familiar term to
mean something very different from the high per-
sonages, whose estates might range from fifty villages
to an extent of land of the size of an English county.

The local Zaminddr of Benares and the North- West
Provinces signifies a sharer in an estate or village in
which the whole land is held and managed in common.
The rents, with all other profits from the estate, are
thrown into a common stock, and after a deduction
for all necessary expenses, the balance is divided
among the proprietors according to their ancestral

124 LORD CORNWALLIS

shares. The Zaminddr of Bengal and Behar, in fact,
may somewhat loosely be described as a big, and the
Zamlnddr of the Upper Provinces as comparatively a
small personage ; and it would be also correct to say
that the powerful Zamlnd^ in Bengal is analogous to
the T&lukdd,r in Oudh.

It is quite clear that this distinction, though not fully
expressed, was clearly understood and recognised by
the administrators who framed the Perpetual Code for
Benares on the model of that of 1 793, and with just the
necessary amplifications of the same, fitted to the
special demands of the new Province. It seems also
tolerably certain that the Permanent Settlement of
Benares was preceded by enquiries of a more detailed
and formal character than had been thought possible
in Bengal Proper. Particulars of the assessment on the
T&lukddrs and village Zaminddrs had been obtained ;
registers of lands exempted from payment of revenue, of
pensions, and of charitable allowances, were drawn up.
Recourse was had to local officers known as E&ntingos,
and new forms of the documents known as Pattds and
KahMiyats^ which are loosely termed leases and their
counterparts, had been framed and issued under the
authority of the Government. In order to facilitate
the transition from a Settlement for five years to a
Settlement in perpetuity, the English Resident and
his Assistants made a regular tour throughout the
Province in the cold season. They investigated the
capabilities of the villages and of th^ir divisions

SETTLEMENT OF BENARES 1 25

and subdivisions ; provided for a restoration of their
rights to some village Zaminddrs, as well as for the
permanent exclusion of certain others who had been
out of possession since July, 1775, the date of our
acquisition of the Province ; revised the assessments ;
arranged for a moderate and progressive increase of
revenue from portions of lands found to be waste but
culturable ; took steps to prevent the levy of transit
duties which had been abolished, and against the
creation of new rent-free tenures : enforced the neces-
sary stipulations for the maintenance of peace, the
detection and communication of crime, and the re-
storation of stolen property. On the whole they pro-
ceeded with cautious local enquiries, which were a
decided improvement on the summary proceedings of
the Cornwallis administration on the one hand, but
were yet much below the standard of the regular village
Settlement, with its detailed record of rights, liabili-
ties, and privileges, which on the other hand has been
the glory of successive generations of oflScials of the
school of Thomason in Upper India, and of Munro in
Madras. Of course this was not accomplished with-
out obstruction and the expenditure of trouble and
time. It was discovered that the Amils, or farmers,
had often availed themselves of their position
and knowledge to * procure deeds of conveyance ^,
in their own names or those of their relations, for

^ This objectionable practice is known as Um-farzi in the Upper and
as hendmi in the Lower Provinces,

ia6 LORD CORNWALLIS

lands the property of persons" in arrears, whose
balances had been wholly or partially liquidated.'

Local enquiries revealed the existence of serious
disputes between pattiddrSi or sharers in the same
village, as to their respective portions and between
different families claiming the same villages. As a
rule the village Zamind&rs, either in actual occupancy
or known to have been in possession at any time .
since the acquisition of the Province in 1775, were
readmitted to Settlement ; and while the Resident and
his Assistants had power to fix the revenue payable,
this ruling was to be no bar to the prosecution of any
claim to a recovery of the proprietary right in the
Civil Courts of the Province. In other words, the
English revenue officer fixed the amount of revenue
for each estate or village, and took an engagement
from one out of two or more contending claimants
before him. The amount of revenue could only be
varied on appeal by the Resident or the Revenue
Board.

A dissatisfied claimant for the Settlement was
left to his new remedy before the civil tribunal;
and if successful there, would succeed to his estate
or village, burdened with the payment of the re-
venue already fixed. This amount the Civil Court
had no power to vary. Divers other provisions
with regard to certain Pargands or hundreds were
included in the Regulation which is the land charter
of the Province. They have reference to the services,

SETTLEMENT OF BENARES l2^

claims, and treatment of certain Bdjds ; to the rights
of their tenant-proprietors ; to certain villages held
at quit-rents ; and to other points which it is unneces-
sary here to specify in detail. It was roundly stated
at the time that of the whole Province eight-twelfths
were settled with the Zamlnd&rs ; three-twelfths were
still left in the hands of the Amils; and the re-
maining twelfth was, in the revenue phraseology,
Amdni^; that is to say, the revenue was neither
farmed nor settled, but was collected by an official
yearly, from each contributor direct ; and it is indis-
putable from the language and style of the Regulations
of this year that the administrators of the day had
begun to recognise the existence of new and different
tenures. The pattiddr, or principal shareholder in
a village, was admitted to engage in his own name
for the payment of revenue, while those shareholders
who were then styled inferior patUddrSy were * an-
nexed to or blended in common with the principal
of the family,' or the head man of the cultivating
brotherhood. But it was left optional with the infe-
rior pattiddra to bring suits in the Civil Court for
a separation of their family shares, and for the entry
of their name in a distinct and separate engagement.

Village communities, if they ever existed in Bengal
Proper, had disappeared when our rule began.

^ Am^f is elsewhere known as Kham or Khds-tdhsil, It may be
terminated at the close of a year by the CoUector and a Settlement
made with some responsible person.

ia8 LORD CORNWALLIS

Certain villages and certain tracts of country were
however found to be in the possession of particular
castes. In one place the inhabitants were exclusively
Muhammadan. Other villages and distinct Mahxdlas^
or parts of villages, were tenanted wholly by fisher-
men, by weavers, or by the purely agricultural castes
of Hindus — the Pod, the Eaibart, the Kopali, and the
Teor. But anything like an obligation to collect rents
in common, apportion liabilities, and divide the surplus,
it would not have been easy to find in Lower Bengal.
There were numerous instances in which Bengali
Ryots combined to resist extortion, or to prevent a
purchaser at auction or by private sale, or a lessor,
from enforcing his legal rights. There were also the
usual village functionaries and artisans necessary for
agricultural occupations, e.gr. the watchman, the car-
penter, and the blacksmith. But of the co-parcenary
tenure and the Bh&yachdra village occupied by the
proprietary brotherhood, in which the revenue was
assessed by a hack or rate, there was no trace at the
acquisition of the Diwdni in 1765, in Bengal Proper.

In several other matters, in spite of these variations
in the landed tenures, the precedents of 1793 were
closely followed. The exaction of tolls and taxes and
duties was forbidden. Inland customs were to be
levied at four towns only — Benares, Ghdzipur, Juan-
ptir, and Mirzdpur. The duties of the English Col-
lector were specifically defined. He was to collect
the revenue, whether due from Tdlukdars, Zamlnddra,

SETTLEMENT OF BENARES 1^9

and Pattid&rs ; or from estates fanned to Amils, or
from estates in wmani^ for which no Settlement had
been concluded. He was to endeavour to make a
regular Settlement of estates of this latter class. His
other functions, just as in Bengal Proper, were the
payment of pensions, the management of estates under
the Court of Wards, the due apportionment of revenue
on estates that might be split in two or more parts, the
collection of the excise, and the resumption of invalid
rent-free tenures. Under the Collector were placed
native Tahsilddrs, and minute rules were laid down
for the issue by them of processes in case of defaulters,
and for the eventual confinement of such persons.

Provisions were also made for the levy of fines, and
in extreme cases for the forfeiture of the proprietary
right. It is noteworthy that liberty to appeal against
the proceedings of the revenue Collector to the Civil
Court of the district, to the Provincial Court of Appeal,
and to the Sadr, or highest Court, was expressly re-
served to defaulting Tdlukd&rs and Zamind^s. As in
Bengal, so in Benares, the Governor-General in Council
always contemplated the protection of all subordinate
rights and interests in the land, and it is certain that
this intention was carried out at an earUer period than
was unfortunately the case in the Lower Provinces.

These rights were guarded in Benares by a dis-
tinct and separate law^, and an equitable and com-
prehensive Kegulation, known as VHof iSizi, of which

* Reg. XXVII of 1795.

130 LORD CORNWALUS

8ome notice may be taken hereafter, was passed for
the enquiry into and Settlement of the rights and
interests of all classes concerned with the land ; and
under this law adequate protection was afforded to
Zaminddrs, Pattlddrs, and others. Possibly, too, the
sturdier character of the inhabitants of the Eenares
Province may have facilitated the task of Collectors
and Settlement officers in this respect. The culti-
vators were more independent, and more ready to
combine together for legitimate purposes of defence.

From whatever cause, it is certain that disturbances
in regard to rents, exactions, and encroachments were
less frequent, and the cause of less anxiety to our
administrators in Benares, after it was thus per-
manently settled in 1795. The subsequent Settlement
of the rights of tenant-proprietors, and Ryots generally,
was the work of Collectors such as James Thomason
in Azamgarh, and of others elsewhere under the admir-
able system devised by Robert Bird. It was accom-
plished gradually between 183^1 and 1840, as far as the
Province of Benares was concerned. To describe the
regular Settlement of the Dodb of Hindustan and other
districts in the North- West Provinces, by which the
two names just mentioned have become household
words to some twenty-five millions of Asiatics, forms
no part of this memoii*.

While the law for the punctual payment of revenue
by the Zamind&rs of Bengal and Behar was enforced
with stringency, and while defaulters were exposed

RECOVERY OF RENTS 13 1

to processes, confinement, and the eventual forfeiture
of their rights, sufficient provision had not been made
for the realisation of the Zamfnd&rs' rents, which are
the basis of all land revenue. In 1793 ^ ^^^ ^^^
been enacted defining the extent of the legal coercion
which landholders might exercise over under-farmers,
dependent Tdlukddrs, and Ryots, but it was soon
found to be insufficient for this purpose; and in 1799
a further Regulation, No. VII, was enacted, which re-
mained for more than half a century the principal
statute relative to the recovery of arrears. By this
law any tenant was considered a defaulter who with-
held his rent beyond the day specified in his written
engagement or, in default of specification, beyond the
date sanctioned by local usage. The landholder was
empowered to distrain crops and products of the
earth, as well as cattle and other personal property.
Ploughs and other implements of husbandry, cattle
actually trained to the plough, and grain for seed,
were exempted from attachment and sale, and the same
protection was extended to lands, houses, and other
immovable property. A notice of fifteen days was
necessary before the attached property could be sold.
Further power was given to landholders to procure
the an*est of dependent Tdlukd&rs, leaseholders, Ryots,
or their sureties ; and they were also authorised to
summon, and if necessary to compel the attendance of
their Ryots at their private Kacheri or local office, with
the object of adjusting their balances, and of giving

I 2

13a LORD CORNWALUS

explanations in regard to delay in payment, or any
other similar matter. This provision was very often
grossly abused, and it was eventually abolished, to
the dissatisfaction of the landholders, but to the effec-
tive relief of the Eyots, by a comprehensive statute in
1859. The decisions of these suits instituted for the
recovery of rents were called summary suits.

The procedure was intended to be simple and
expeditious. No arrear of more than one twelve-
month could be adjudged. And the power to hear
such cases has, at various times, been shifted from the
Civil Courts to the Collectors and back, so as to cause
much perplexity and confusion. Bents that were due
beyond the year could only be exacted by a regular
civil suit. It is evident from the language of the
whole law of 1799, which was intended to be very
full and comprehensive, that many abuses had been
already brought to light in the management of estates.

But it is by no means to be understood that Zamin-
d&rs and their agents were always harsh and unscru-
pulous, or that the Ryot was invariably a down-trodden
and innocent being. Instances could be quoted by
scores in which both parties were in fault. If a Zamin-
dfir waa weak and inattentive to business and his agents
careless, the Byots could easily set him at defiance.
When a new landlord came in by private purchase or
public sale, it might take him six months or a year
before he could realise any rent at all. The bound-
aries of his acquisition were ill-defined. Its area was

RENTS 133

uncertain. There were no maps, and the rent-roll,
with the names of the tenants and their holdings,
might not be available, or if found was often wanting
in many important particulars. Frequently in sheer
despair or from inability to manage a large estate, a
Zamind&r would create a sub-infeudation on a part of it,
or would grant a lease of the whole or half of his Zamin-
ddri to some determined and energetic Englishman.

In some cases the new owner or lessee found it
necessary to bring a series of summary suits against
defaulters, to measure lands under the protection of
the police, and to institute a regular civil action to fix
the rent according to the custom of the Pargani, on
the different kinds of crops and lands, selecting for
typical cases three or four of the most obstructive
and substantial Byots. In the end, a persevering
landlord or lessee generally had his own way.
Decrees were obtained, and after delays and appeals,
were enforced against a head-man or permanent tenant-
proprietor. The less determined villagers gave in,
attended at the local office, and effected a private
settlement; then, in all probability, the Zamfnd&r
made up for lost time and money. He got what in
Anglo-Indian phrase was termed the dakhal : that is
to say, he obtained a firm footing in the village owing
to command of means, knowledge of revenue practice,
dexterity in management, and determination in carry-
ing out his decrees.. Bents were then punctually
exacted. Byots were compelled by force to attend

134 LORD CORN W ALUS

at the Kacheri. Lands were measured and re-
measured. Summary suits for the realisation of rents
due in the year were followed by formidable regular
suits brought to raise the old rent to the standard of
the neighbourhood. In fact, by the machinery of the
Courts and by pressure out of doors, a general all-
round rise in rents was effected. In one district in
Eastern Bengal the tenants were so distrustful of re-
ceipts and quittances given by agents, that they almost
made it a rule to wait for the institution of a summary
suit, when they at once paid the money into Court.

At other times it was not very easy to apportion
the blame between a high-handed landlord and a
defiant or obstructive Ryot. All that can be affirmed
with absolute certainty is that no Ryots theoretically ^
ever objected to pay rent : that they combined equally
for legitimate as for unlawful purposes : and that in
the end it became the duty of the Government to
interfere for their protection. And this eventually
resulted in the well-known Act X of 1859. In the
interim, the statutory provisions regarding the speedy
realisation of rents were amended. The Preamble to
Reg. V of 181 2, passed in the administration of Lord
Minto, is somewhat in the nature of an indictment
against the Zamlnd&rs. There were grounds, it was
deliberately said, for believing that this class had

^ One exception may be made in the case of the Far^ sect of Mus-
alm^ns in Eastern Bengal, who have at times propounded a theory that
Hindus or infidels were not entitled to rent at all.

RENTS 135

abused their powers and had been guUty of acts of
oppression in connection with the distraint and sale
of the property of their tenants. It was advisable to
amend the law of distraint and to revise the rules for
granting pattds, as well as those under which auction
purchasers might collect their rents ; and also to
relieve defaulting Zaminddrs and farmers from a
heavy penalty of twelve per cent, interest. It was
therefore enacted that Zamind&:s were bound to serve
their tenants with a written demand specifying the
precise amount of their arrears. The notice was to
be served personally on the tenant or affixed at his
usual place of residence; and by way of relief or
compensation the tenant, if he disputed the justice of
the demand, was enabled to get the attachment taken
off by making a certain application within five days
and binding himself to institute a civil suit to contest
the distraint and attachment within other fifteen
days. But this provision was somewhat clogged with
formalities, and in practice it was inoperative. The
defaulting tenant had to execute a bond with a surety
before either a Commissioner, a Judge, a Collector, or
the Kdzi of the Pargand — a nondescript kind of func-
tionary — that he would speedily institute his suit ;
and a civil suit in those days involved much trouble,
a good deal of time, and no inconsiderable outlay.

If the suit was not instituted within the pre-
scribed time, the attachment revived against the
person and the property of the defaulter who had

136 LORD CORNWALLIS

given sureties for his action, and the property of the
unfortunate surety became liable for the arrears of
rent, if no suit were brought. It is remarkable that
in this law there is raised for the first time a doubt as
to the existence of any regular standard known as
the Pargan& Bates. Failing such rates, rents were
to be assessed and collections made according to the
rates payable for lands of a similar description in the
neighbourhood. There was another not unimportant
section by which an enhanced rate of rent could not be
levied or awarded judicially unless the tenant had
been served with a formal notice of enhancement
during the month of Jeth or Jy eshtha. This date cor-
responds with the latter half of May and the beginning
of June, and is always regarded as the link between
one agricultural year and another. Agricultural
operations, which are either suspended or languidly
pursued in May, recommence after the beginning of
the periodical rains ; and this event occurs about the
second week of June in Bengal, and towards the end
of that month or at the beginning of July in Behar.

Of the excellent intentions of the framers of this law
there can be no doubt. Remedies were always pro-
vided in every Regulation dealing with landlord and
tenant, for redress against the injustice of summary
decisions by referring discontented parties to the Civil
Court. But, as has been already said, procedure in
those Courts was then cumbrous and slow. Resort
was had to them more by the landlord than by the

RENTS 137

tenant, and though Ryots were brought to understand
the simple procedure of a summary suit before either
the Collector or the Civil Judge, and were not back-
ward in applying to the magistrate for advice and
protection, it may be fairly questioned whether a real
redress for his grievances was provided till nearly
sixty years after the administration of Comwallis.

In 1859, the Legislative Council, constituted by
Lord Dalhousie in 1854, passed an Act which has
been termed the Magna Charta of the Ryots.

CHAPTER Vn
Madras. Sale Laws. Resumptions

The introduction of the Permanent Settlement into
the Province of Benares seems, from the legislative and
official correspondence of the time, to have followed
rather as a matter of course. But the Court of Direc-
tors inclined to the opinion that the same measure
might be introduced into the Madras Presidency, as
they were sensible * of the propriety and expediency
of the late revenue and judicial regulations esta-
blished in Bengal.' A vast amount of correspondence
ensued. Both the Madras and the Bombay Govern-
ments had been furnished by Comwallis with all the
papers regarding the Bengal Settlement and the
establishment of the new Courts of justice. The Re-
venue Board at Madras directed an elaborate enquiry
into the resources of certain tracts which at that time,
or about 1798-9, comprised B&r^mahal and Din-
digal, Coimbatore and K&nara, a district subsequently
transferred to Bombay. Much caution had been en-
joined and information had been procured of the
various Collectors about the rights of the under-

MADRAS 139

tenants and other proprietors. A comprehensive report
was eventually sent home, and about the year i8oa a
Special Commission was appointed to settle permanently
the land revenue of those parts of the Madras Presidency
for which suflScient materials had been collected.

Within two years the Permanent Settlement was
introduced into the Northern Circdrs, and by 1806-7
the following districts were settled on the same
plan. A Jaghir obtained from the Nawdb of Arcot
in 1750 and 1763, which surrounds the Presidency
town, and is now Chengalpat ; later acquisitions,
including the districts of Salem ; several tracts
termed PoUams held by powerful turbulent chiefs,
known as Polygars ; Bdmndd, Krishnagiri, and some
others of less importance, were all included in the
same category. But at this very time other views
began to prevail. In some places the fixed revenues
had been collected with greater facility. But in the
Jaghir, which had been converted into a Collectorate,
the revenue had not been paid with punctuality.
Certain estates had been sold for default, and some
others had been thrown back on the hands of Govern-
ment. Part of the failure was due to a calamitous
season, but serious mistakes had been made in esti-
mating the rents of the tenants, or in fixing the
assessment of the Zamfnddrs, and a formidable rival
to the supporters of a Permanent Settlement appeared
in the person of Thomas Munro. He showed con-
clusively that a Settlement made with individual

I40 LORD CORNWALUS

proprietors, though apparently intricate and laborious,
had been familiar to native Oovemments; that in-
dividuals called Patels, or head-men, were per-
fectly capable of aiding in the Settlement of their
respective villages ; that a complete establishment of
hereditary revenue servants was already in existence ;
that Ryots were in the habit of meeting and holding
discussions about agricultural stock, cultivation, and
payment of rent ; and that an active Collector making
the circuit of his district, and beginning when the
early crop was reaped and the late crop sown, was
quite capable of conducting these multifarious opera-
tions to an issue financially profitable to Government,
and socially advantageous to the Ryot. There was
more correspondence of the usual kind; statistics,
reports. Minutes, and Resolutions. In the end, the
Permanent Assessment was staid. In only a single
portion of the Madras Territory had the Bengal sys-
tem been introduced. Malabar, E&nara, Coimbatore,
the Ceded Districts, Nellore and Arcot, and those
magnificent tracts of country comprised in Tanjore,
Trichinopoli, and Tinnevelli had nearly all escaped.

This is not the place to discuss minutely the merits
and demerits of the various revenue systems pre-
vailing in different provinces of India. Variety in
the mode of collecting the dues of the State, and in
the persons or communities responsible for the reve-
nue, is an essential part of our administration, and
contributes to the accumulation of a large stock of

MADRAS 141

experience. The error in Bengal was that, from a
variety of causes, the corollary to a new and com-
prehensive measure which had established a solid
landed aristocracy, was not carried out for more than
half a century. In the greater part of Madras the
settlement is Byotw&ri, and though in cases where
Zamlnd&rs have thrown up their estates, and Govern-
ment has stepped in, the Byotw&ri system has been
introduced, the converse operation has never taken
place. No district and no part of a district put under
the Ryotwiri system, has ever again reverted to the
Zaminddrs.

The multifarious and important sub-infeudations
which have arisen out of Comwallis*s Zamind&ri sys-
tem may claim a little attention. Although reliable
statistics in regard to trade, commerce, agriculture,
and population have only been collected of very late
years, there are the broad facts in regard to the Lower
Provinces in general, and to Eastern and Central
Bengal in particular, which have been so prominent
as to admit of no dispute. The alluvial soil was
extremely fertile and the revenue assessment was
light. For some years, as has been shown, the Zamfn-
d&ps were restricted from giving perpetual leases of
villages or portions of their estates. But it soon
became dear that whatever laws Government might
enact for the benefit of the cultivator and for the
security of its own exchequer, the Zamfndiix could
not be prevented from assigning to other persons

14:i LORD CORNWALLIS '

those distinct rights which had been vested in him as
superior landlord. He very soon turned this unde-
niable privilege into a source of profit. Sometimes
the Zamlnd&:i was unwieldy and large. Ryots were
obstinate and difficult to manage. Servants were
corrupt and untrustworthy. The Zaminddr had be-
come involved in expensive litigation, or he wanted
funds to dedicate a temple, to marry a son or
daughter, to entertain a host of Br&hmans at a
Sr^ddha or sacrificial supper, to build a new resi-
dence, to satisfy the caprice of the moment, the duty
of charity, and the obligations of religion.

The Mahdrdj^ of Bardwdn, whose descendants
are still amongst the most opulent of the Bengal
landholders, had been in the habit of creating
sub-tenures known as Patni. In its etymological
meaning this word signified a Settlement or colony.
In revenue phraseology it came to designate a Tdluk
created by the Zamlndfir on the whole or a part of his
estate, * to be held at a rent fixed in perpetuity by the
lessee and his heirs for ever ^.* The Pataniddr prac-
tically stepped into the place of the Zamind^ who,
though in theory still held bound by the Government
to discharge his obligations, to aid the police, and to
report crimes, became practically a rent-charger on
this portion of his estate. The Patanid&r having
paid a considerable sum as bonus for the creation of
his own title, acquired a permanent estate with the

^ Regulation VIII of 1819.

SUB-TENURES 143

right of sale and transfer, and all the other privi-
leges of his lessor. By the law of 1819 arrears of
Patni rent could be exacted by the Zamindfir, not
merely by the ordinary process of a suit, but by the
summary process of sale by the Collector after due
notice, and the execution of certain formalities. The
Zaminddr's estate, when in default, was liable to be
put up to public auction at four stated periods of the
year. That of the Pataniddr could be sold only at
two periods — ^in the month of May and in October.

Bules were passed in the same law cancelling all
subordinate creations in the event of such public
auction, and yet allowing the holders of the incum-
brances to save their properties by depositing the
amount of arrears claimed by the superior landlord.
Generally speaking, the new law gave validity to a
series of transactions which, originating in Bardwfin,
had been followed by the landholders of other districts
and had by degrees spread over the whole country.

So far, in all probability, the creation of Pat-
nis, or rather the sub-division of large estates into
what is really a separate estate more compact and
manageable, might have worked well. The public
revenue was safeguarded. The condition of the tenant
proprietor would not have been impaired. But, un-
fortunately, the practice commenced by the Zaminddr
was improved and extended by his creation, the Pata-
niddr. He, in his turn, harassed by contests with his
Byots, or requiring a round sum to be paid down for his

144 LORD CORNWALUS

own convenience, parted with his rights and privileges
as a Fatanid&r of the second degree, and the latter to
another of the third degree. These latter creations
were termed Dar-Patanidiirs and Seh-Fatanid^rs.

It is useless now, after the lapse of sixty years,
to discuss the policy of giving statutory effect to
these repeated devolutions of duties and rights, or
to enquire whether it would not have been both fair
and equitable to have recognised the creation of the
iirst incumbrance and nothing beyond. But what is
undeniable is, that as each Patanid&r of the iirst,
second, and third degree, looked for some profit over
and above the ordinary rental of the village, the
burden of creating and supplying such excess fell on
the actual cultivators. It was not likely that a
Patanid&r of any class would assume the position
of a mere rent-collector satisfied with a small commis-
sion as his only reward. The law already quoted
vested the Patanid&r with the right of sub-letting
the T&luks 4n the manner they might deem most
conducive to their own interest,' and the legislators
of that day directed their attentioii rather to the
security of the public revenue and to the privileges
of the Zamlnd&c* than to the protection of the Byot.

Patnis were for a long time the only under-tenures
on behalf of which fresh legislation was particularly
demanded. But many vaiieties of similar tenures,
known by different names and held under varying
conditions^ were created all over the province. In

.-" » *^ * • - * *

SUB-TENURES 145

the district of B&karganj there were found four and
five of such sub-infeudations interposed between the
landholder and the cultivating tenant. They were
repeatedly the subject of judicial investigation and
had the sanction of decrees of Court. They were
alluded to, if not definitely protected, in the various
laws passed to regulate sales of land for arreai*s of
revenue, and faciUties were given to the holders of
such under-tenures to register their holdings specially,
so as to protect them from cancelment in the event of
the sale of the superior right. That there has been
found for nearly a century a margin of profit for
tenures intervening three and four deep between the
Zamind&r and the Byot ; that the jungle has dimi-
nished; that agriculture has spread; that a magni-
ficent internal trade has sprung up ; that fieets of
country boats, lines of bullock-carts, and thousands
of miles of railway, have bejen required for the trans-
port of produce of every description to centres of
internal commerce as well as to the port of Calcutta; is
due in part to natural causes operating on a soil of
unrivalled fertility, renewed in many places by the
silt deposits of a thousand streams, but also to the
patient industry and steady cultivation of the Ryot,
who knows how to make the most of the capacity of his
holding, and with primitive instruments as ancient as
the days of Asoka or Manu has produced astonishing,
if * unscientific,' results.

It has not always been easy to define the limits of

146 LORD CORNWALLIS

an under-tenure by any precise form of words, or to
say when a tenant-proprietor of the substantial class
who has cultivating tenants under him, ought to be
reckoned as the holder of a sub-tenure. Recently an
attempt has been made to separate the two classes
and give them a distinct statutory recognition. Prac-
tically, a district officer who knows his business would
have little difficulty in coming to a decision as to the
status of any one individual case.

The Sale Laws of Bengal affixing the penalty of
loss and cancelment of an estate to a failure to pay
the revenue at the specified times, have often been
treated as if they were inexorable and harsh. They
have not seldom been modified between 1793 *^^
1859. But their effect has been to secure punctuality
of payment — which could not have been secured by
any other means — and to protect the claims of Govern-
ment, without, of recent years, inflicting any real in-
jury on the Zamfnddrs as a class. Doubtless at the
commencement of this century, when estates were
put up to sale at Calcutta only and not in the several
districts where they were situated, without sufficient
notice, and much oftener than once a quarter, many
estates were sold in haste and purchased by specu-
lators or persons interested in concealing facts from
the owners. But for the last fifty years provisions
have been introduced which have simplified and
mitigated the law. Persons having a lien on the
estate are allowed to pay up the sum necessary to

SALE LAWS 147

preserve it from sale. A sharer is protected against
the wilful or careless default of a co-sharer.

Sales are conducted with due formalities, of which
all interested parties have notice ; and though a sale
is in theory held to annul all incumbrances, to vest
the purchaser with what is analogous to a Parlia-
mentary title, and to allow him to enter on a clear
property not clogged or fettered by the acts or im-
prudence of his predecessor, it has been thought ex-
pedient to preserve from cancelment not only certain
old under-tenures and Ryots with rights of occupation,
but other interests which have grown up in the general
development and progress of the Province. Lands
held at hoTvA-fide leases at fair rents, or let in farms
for periods not exceeding twenty years, were ex-
empted. And in the former class were included
mines, gardens, manufactures, tanks, canals, places of
worship, and burying-grounds. It may be safely said
that during the last half-century and more no valu-
able estates have come to the hammer by the mere
operation of the law of arrears and sale. Many
miserable properties have been bought for Govern-
ment at a small or a nominal sum, in default of any
private bidders, and the management of these proper-
ties, termed ^Ehds Mahals/ or * private estates,'
forms a distinct and special branch of the duties of
every Collector. The Government, in such cases, has
acquired the Zamfnd&ri as well as the Sovereign
right

148 LORD CORNWALUS

These State-purchi^ses are generally farmed oat to
some enterprising individual, who is often an English*
man, and it has lately been calculated that the whole
yearly revenue derivable from this source in the
Lower Provinces does not amount to much more
than i^22o^ooo a year — a sum insignificant in com-
parison with the rent-roll of other landed gentry all
over the Province. On this part of the subject it may
be safely asserted that the economic result of the
land laws for Bengal ; of the tendency of the joint
Hindu family system to sub-divide and separate
estates; of the inevitable increase of population,
wealth, and capital, derived from commerce, ban k ing,
and enterprise ; of the desire of new men to possess
old acres ; and of the general sense of security created
by nearly a century of peace ; is one which Comwallis
in a certain measure anticipated, and which he would
have rejoiced to see.

On another division of this subject, the action taken
by Government was not satisfactory. At all times
and in all provinces of India, its rulers have been in
the habit of making grants of land, to be held free
from the payment of revenue, to Br&hmans and
priests, for the endowment of places of worship ; to
men who had done good service, in civil and military
capacities ; and to favourites of every conceivable
degree of merit or demerit — ^ministers, fiddlers, dancing-
girls, concubines, buffoons, soothsayers, and cooks.
Warren Hastings was fully aware of the existence of

RENT-FREE TENURES 149

these grants; and Comwallis had, as has been seen,
contemplated an early enquiry into the validity of
the titles by which they were held. Unfortunately,
each Governor-General from Comwallis to Bentinck
was also Governor of Bengal, and had his hands fully
occupied with wars and conquests, the cession and
pacification of new territories, and the enactment
of legislative measures of paramount necessity or
undisputed advantage. Thus, although divers dis-
cussions took place, and though a special law for the
resumption of illegal and invalid tenures was passed
during the administration of the Marquess of Hastings,
in 181 9, nothing was done till ten further years had
elapsed.

It was, beyond any doubt, a fundamental principle of
the Settlement of Bengal, and indeed of that of every
province in India, that the Ruling Power was entitled
to some portion of the produce of every acre of land,
unless that same power had waived or alienated its
rights for a time or in perpetuity, and by the grant of
title-deeds or documents which the British Govern-
ment would be bound to respect. So in 1828 a class
of officers, termed Special Commissioners, was called
into existence to enquire into these alienations, and
subsequently there were placed under them others,
designated Special Deputy Collectors, each of whom
had charge of this department of enquiry in three or
four districts, and whose duties were kept distinct
from those of the ordinary Collectora. The alienations

150 LORD CORNWALLIS

were at first divided into two broad classes. Those
which had been granted by the Sovereign or Em-
peror, which were known as B&dsh&hi or Boyal
grants^ and those which had been conferred by rulers
of provinces, Viceroys, Zamind&rs or Amils, and
other high functionaries. These latter were known
as Htikmi grants. The highest form of these aliena-
tions was that of Altumgha, or the great seal. An-
other description was known as Madad-i-maish^ or
'in aid of subsistence.* The villages said to have
been assigned by the Persian monarch to Themis-
tocles must have been of this sort. Then there were
various other descriptions : Devattar, grants for
temples ; Brahmattar to Br&hmans ; Mahattrdn to the
S(idra caste ; Aima, lands given in charity and held
at a quit-rent ; Pir&n and Fakir^, lands given to
Muhammadan saints or their shrines, and to Fakirs ;
and several others. In order to avoid minute and
harassing enquiries, it was ruled that all grants less
than one hundred Mghds in extent were to be exempt
from investigation, and this exemption was subse-
quently extended to parcels of land of less than fifty
highds each, though one or more such parcels might
be covered by one Farm&n or Sannad, and might in the
aggregate amount to more than one hundred highds.

But the excitement which the Resumption Laws
caused in the native community was excessive and
was not soon forgotten. In the course of half a cen-
tury, many of the original title-deeds had disappeared ;

RESUMPTIONS 1 5 1

ruined by damp, eaten by insects, destroyed in the
fires which break out in the dry season in every
b&z&r, and reduce the whole place to ashes in a
couple of hours. The temptation to replace the
missing deeds by forging new ones was irresistible.

Again, many of the lands originally granted for
support of religious foundations and to pious and
learned persons, had been sold or diverted to secular
purposes. Many, like the kingdoms which had ' over-
set and passed from hand to hand,' had also changed
hands. The native community had been lulled into
a false security while Government was sleeping over
its own rights. For months and years a violent con-
troversy raged in the press, in which the partisans of
the Government and the advocates 'of the Ldkhiraj-
di.r displayed remarkable ability and ingenuity.

In the progress of the enquiry, various concessions
were made by the Government to remove some of the
discontent. Resumption was not insisted on, if the
purposes for which the grant had been made origin-
ally were stiU carried out ; if there were strong pre-
sumption that they were of a date anterior to 1765,
or the Diwdni ; and if there were proof of continuous
and uninterrupted possession subsequent to that date.
The effect of these investigations was in Bengal to in-
crease the Government revenue by about thirty-eight
lacks a year, the whole operations having cost one
hundred and twenty lacks. But a vast number of
small portions of land, which had been expressly

152 LORD CORNWALUS

excluded from the claims of the Government, were still
left exposed to the assessment of the Zamind&rs.

As the onus for proving his L&khir&j, or rent-free
title, was properly placed on the Eyot claiming it,
many of these titles were challenged in the Courts of
law, and, when found to be defective, were declared
liable to assessment of rent. All over Bengal, how-
ever^ there are still to be found examples of Devattar
and Brahmattar, and other descriptions of land which
have escaped the ordeal ; and there is a sort of under-
standing amongst the community that Ryots who cul-
tivate such lands for their fortunate possessors are
entitled to sit at lower rents than the tenants of an
ordinary Tdluk or Jot. Warned by the excitement
moved by such resumptions, the Indian Government,
in all its later acquisitions of conquest or cession, has
been more expeditious in the assertion of its rights.
The enquiry has been made as soon as circumstances
permitted, on well-considered principles, and with a
leaning towards the intentions of the grantors. In
some instances the grant has been prolonged for two
and three generations, and then has been assessed at
half-rates. There can be no doubt that in every pro-
vince such grants, made by one dynasty, ruler, or
Viceroy, were understood to be subject to the good-
will and pleasure of the successor. The just and
equitable policy is for the revenue department to
overhaul all these alienations at the time when the
regular settlement — whether Tdlukd&ri, village com-

QUINQUENNIAL REGISTERS 153

munity, or Ryotwdri — is carried out. To separate the
two operations, and to postpone the L&khir&j enquiry,
was an error in the eyes of natives, almost equivalent
to resumption by the strong hand of a despot.

In carrying out other administrative measures,
which followed on the Comwallis Code, something
of the same laxity was apparent. The quinquennial
registers contemplated by the laws of 1793 and 1800,
and intended to show the changes in estates and in
their owners, were never properly kept up. New
shareholders and purchasers were allowed to register
their names on the Collector's rent-roll, or not — just
as they chose. The local officials, known as K&ntin-
goes and Patwdris, the latter being village account-
ants who in other parts of India keep up the
statistics of the villages, gradually disappeared. In
another direction something was at last done. A
field survey of the Province was thought impolitic,
owing to its enormous expanse. But a survey of
the Mahals^ or estates, was begun by the revenue
officers some forty years ago ; and this rough survey,
as it was termed, was tested and verified by another
set of officers, chiefly of the staff corps, who used
a more accurate set of instruments and had more
technical skill. Much information was collected in
this way. Accurate lists of villages were made ;
maps were drawn of estates in blocks, and where — ^as
was often the case— one single village was parcelled out
amongst different estates, crossing and re-crossing each

154 LORD CORNWALLIS

other in detached portions, the maps were proportion-
ately minute, accurate^ and detailed. All natural and
all remarkable artificial objects were entered on the
maps; tanks and rivers, depressions and nvUaka,
mosques and temples, residences of stone and brick.

A considerable amount of agricultural and com-
mercial statistics was collected. Thus the geogra-
phical features^ the character of the rivers, the staple
crops and other products of the land, the flora and
fauna, the trades and castes, the existing facilities
for communication by land and water, the principal
wholesale marts, and divers other local characteristics,
were duly investigated, reported on, and published.

These enquiries were for the most part instituted
without offending prejudice or creating or exciting
groundless fear about enhancement of taxation. It
has been said that if it were worth while to incur
expense and depute two different sets of officials to
survey the land — first with the prismatic compass,
and then with the theodolite, it would have been
politic, advantageous, and easy to extend the char-
acter and broaden the aims of the enquiry. With a
little more expense, the survey might have included
the complete demarcation of Tnouzahs or villages, in
the revenue sense of the term, and even of fields and

plots.

But in Lower Bengal, more perhaps than in any
other Province of India, the most unexpected changes
are wrought by the tremendous force of its streams,

GENERAL RESULTS 155

bringing down a yellow flood in the rainy season. A
vast body of water cuts through natural obstacles ;
sweeps away whole villages ; corrodes and absorbs half
or the whole of an estate ; inundates large tracts, and
disappears in the month of October, to leave behind
it a fresh alluvial soil, from which every familiar
landmark has disappeared, while bewildered owners
make vague guesses at the outline of their former
possessions, and the most experienced boatman an-
chors his craft at an unfamiliar landing-place and
launches it on a new stream. Nor is it superfluous
to remark that the whole community of Bengal
Proper has for nearly a century been accustomed to be
governed by the action of the judicial Courts. Settle-
ment ofBcers, native Tahsilddrs^ and all the admirable
machineiy so familiar in other Provinces, have there
never sprung into life ; and if Courts of first instance
have of late years been multiplied, if new districts
have been created, and facilities for the disposal of
revenue and criminal cases been multiplied by the
formation of sub-divisions, it may be asked whether
some of the objects of the Cornwallis Settlement have
not at last been fully attained.

That the Perpetual Settlement should have been
put forward to support groundless claims and justify
unfair exemptions which no ruler could grant, was to
be expected. It has been invoked as a guarantee
against the imposition of new forms of taxation, im-
perial and local. It was humorously said by a very

1^6 LORD CORNWALUS

able Lieutenant-Qovemor of Bengal, that at one time
jealousy of any enquiry prevailed to such an extent
that to ask any Byot his name, except in a Court of
justice, was tantamount to a violation of the rights
of landlords. And the liability of the Zamind&rs to
contribute to the calls of the State by taxation other
than an increase of their land assessment^ was
thoroughly discussed and decided by the Secretary^
of State for the time, some twenty years ago. The
guarantee of 1793, ^^ ^^ clearly reasoned, only
affected the land revenue. Zamind&rs could not be
exempted from the other calls to which every subject
is liable, without unduly increasing the burdens of
less favoured classes in Bengal and in other Pro-
vinces. But the Perpetual Settlement of the land
cannot be altered or impaired. It is still remembered
with the gratitude due to its author. It has com-
mitted the British nation to pledges from which no
Viceroy can think of drawing back.

» The Duke of Argyll.

CHAPTER VIII

Mission to the Continent. Indian Corre-
spondence

CoRNWALLis was Dot loDg permitted to enjoy the
rest to which in India he had often looked forward
and which he had fairly earned. Kaye writes very
happily that the Ministry of the day regarded the
ex-Govemor-General not as one who had been em-
ployed for the good of his country in the East, but as
one who was stiU to be employed for his country's
good in the West. An English army had been sent to
Flanders to co-operate with the Austrians, Prussians,
and Dutch in the defence of that country. The Duke
of York, who commanded the English aimy, had de-
feated Pichegru. The Austrians, under Generals Cler-
fait and Kaunitz, had experienced a severe check.

The Austrian and Prussian generals held very
different views about the employment of the Allied
Army, and in order to mediate between them and to
obviate jealousy and discontent, Comwallis, within
four months of his return from India, was sent on
a mission to Flanders to explain matters to the Em-
peror of Austria. He was not given a very definite

158 LORD CORNWALUS

position or command, but it was soon obvious that his
deputation meant, practically, the supersession of the
Duke of York, and eventually Comwallis felt himself
compelled to address a letter to his Boyal Highness
explanatory of the motives which had led him to
accept the mission. It is creditable to the Duke that
he took in good part the mauly and straightforward
explanation which was entirely in accordance with
the character and motives of Comwallis, at every
critical conjuncture. Pitt and Dundas, it is tolerably
clear, would have favoured a plan for giving Com-
wallis the rank of Field Marshal, and virtually placing
him in command of the entire allied force. But there
were insurmountable difficulties in the way* The
Austrians did not want the Prussians to act on the
Meuse, but required them in West Flanders, and they
deprecated the exposure of the Rhine boundary to the
attacks of the French. Mallendorf, the Prussian
general, on the other hand, refused to respond to a
request for any such employment of his troops in
Flanders, and after divers conferences and much cor-
respondence, the plan of putting Comwallis at the head
of the combined forces was abandoned, and he returned
to England sometime in the middle of 1794.

He was, however, still consulted by the Ministry
about the conduct of operations on the Continent,
Comwallis recognised the necessity for acting on the
offensive, for the employment of a considerable Eng-
lish force, and for a Commander-in-Chief of capacity

MISSION TO THE CONTINENT 159

and resolution. Engaged as he was in matters of
paramount importance to the influence of England at
Continental Courts, he had still time to devote to
news from India, and we get occasional glimpses of
his private life. He took a house in Lower Grosvenor
Street from Lord Hertford, completely furnished, for
which he paid 600 guineas a year. He purchased
a manor and estate adjoining the park of Lord Bristol
for £12,^000^ and he was only prevented from giving
evidence on the impeachment of Warren Hastings, at
the solicitation of the accused, by an attack of illness.
Afterwards, however, his evidence was taken by the
managers.

Early in 1795 Comwallis was made Master of the
Ordnance, a post which he would gladly have ex-
changed for the Tower, and this was soon afterwards
followed by the command of the troops in Essex and
Hertfordshire, with head-quarters at Warley. Owing
to the disturbed state of the Continent, his command
was one of responsibility and importance, for he had
under him no fewer than two lieutenant-generals and
five major-generals. ButLidian affairs were perpetually
engaging his attention. Shore writes to him about the
death of Sindia, and the Royal and Company's troops.
General Abercromby tells him that at Shore's bidding
he had to put down a rising of the rebellion promoted
by Ghuldm Muhammad, a young son of the deceased
Nawdb of Rdmpur. Comwallis found time to answer
Shore, and to give to another correspondent a memoran-

l6o LORD CORNWALUS

dum in which the jurisdiction of the Supreme Courts
of the Presidencies over any natives is very strongly
deprecated. Attempts made at various periods of
Indian history to extend the authority of the old
Supreme Court to natives not residing within the
Umits of the Presidency towns, have been frustrated.

But ComwaUis seems to have gone further, and to
have recommended that litigation in the Presidency
Courts should be confined to cases in which both the
litigants were Englishmen, or at any rate were not
natives. He was of opinion that natives, under proper
safeguards, might be summoned before such Courts as
witnesses only. But what he dreaded was the expen-
sive character of such litigation and the subjection
of Asiatics to the jurisdiction of tribunals that
administered strange laws in a language which, at
that time, few natives could understand.

Controversies on this and similar points, and as to
whether Englishmen in their turn should or should
not be subjected to the local tribunals in civil
and criminal cases, have at various times convulsed
Anglo-Indian society. Such agitation was not set
at rest till the amalgamation of the Supreme and
Sadr Courts of the Presidency into one tribunal,
styled the High Court, in 1862. The fusion was due
to the able and constructive statesmanship of the late
Lord Halifax. But it is interesting to observe how
Cornwallis had anticipated that this question of juris-
diction, whether of English Courts over natives, or of

DISCONTENT OF INDIAN OFFICERS l6l

local tribunals over Englishmen engaged in mercantile
pursuits in the interior of the country, was sure to
provoke a vehement discussion.

India was, however, at the end of the last century-
destined to be the scene of an agitation far more
dangerous to our supremacy and one which threatened
the very foundation of our power. Comwallis had
circulated some queries about the Royal and the Com-
pany's troops to thirteen distinguished officers, most of
whom were in the Company's service. This enquiry
got wind, and it was taken up, on imperfect know-
ledge and in an adverse sense, by Englishmen serving
in the native regiments. Officers met, appointed dele-
gates, swore each other to secrecy, and formulated
proposals subversive of all discipline, and to speak
plainly, characterised by amazing eflFrontery. The dele-
gates insisted that the Royal troops should never ex-
ceed a small fixed number ; that generals in the King's
army should be ineligible for staff appointments ; that
all promotions should go by seniority ; and that no
general officer should ever be selected for a command.

There were other demands equally offensive and
incompatible with discipline. Sir John Shore at
Calcutta was so perturbed at the spectacle of this
insubordination that he wanted troops to be sent
from the Cape of Good Hope and Madras to awe the
officers into submission, and he warned Lord Keith
that the naval force under his command might be
called up to Calcutta. The Ministry at home wer&

l6a LORD CORNWALUS

evidently perplexed, and Dnndas in a letter of en-
treaty begged Comwallis to bring himself to forego
the comforts of home for one year, and to proceed to
India to settle the claims of the officers. Dondas
held rightly that the very British Empire might be
at stake, and he was even prepared, had Comwallis
refused the appointment, to proceed to India himself.

But Dundas had a firm belief that all difficulties
would vanish on the mere mention of the name of
Comwallis. Comwallis actually consented to go, and
in one of his many confidential letters to Qeneral
Boss he briefly says, * The die is cast, and I am to go
out to India: how sorry I feel that your domestic
circumstances put it out of my power to ask you
to accompany me.' Events, however, then took an-
other turn. Some of the loyal Bengal officers repu-
diated the pretensions of the delegates. Concessions
were made by the Board of Control and by the Court
of Directors which did not at all commend themselves
to Comwallis. Indeed he calls one of his proposed
instructions * a milk-and-water order.' A mutiny
broke out at Portsmouth, and Comwallis gave up his
appointment to India in August, 1797.

His services were next required much nearer home,
in a position which has tried and been fatal to the
reputation of many men whose claims to statesman-
ship are recognised, and which from the violence of
parties, the clash of interests, the exposure to relent-
less and searching criticism that follows immediately

IRELAND 163

on action, was at that special period calculated to test
all the qualities of firmness, decision, tact, and con-
stnictive statesmanship. It waa as trying as a cam-
paign against an Oriental usurper, as the purification
of the Indian service, or as the establishment of a
land tax on a new basis. Lord Camden was about to
relinquish his post as Lord-Lieutenant of Lreland, and
the Ministry determined to replace him by Lord Com-
wallis as Viceroy and Commander-in-Chief. It does
not come within the scope of this memoir to give
even a summary of the administration which pre-
ceded the Union. Comwallis assumed his onerous
and responsible office in June, 1798, and was suc-
ceeded by Lord Hardwicke in May, 1801. In these
three years the Union was carried out.

Amidst all the anxieties, disappointments, crosses
and vexations by which Comwallis was tried during
his Lrish administration, it is pleasant to turn to his
Indian correspondence. The Viceroy of Ireland had
never forgotten the Governor-General of India. He
had naturally been much interested and alarmed
by the insubordination of the officers of the Bengal
army; and just after hearing of the suppression of
the delegates and the triumph of the loyal and faith-
ful officers, he had been asked or had volunteered to
give to an officer proceeding to India a letter of in-
troduction to Sir John Shore, his successor in the
Governor- Generalship. It is brief, and must be
reproduced with only a word of explanation.

L J^

1 64 LORD CORNWALLIS

'Whitehall, June loth, 1796.
*To Sir John Shore.

* Dear Sir,

* I beg leave to introduce to you Colonel
Wesley (sic), who is Lieutenant-colonel of my regi-
ment. He is a sensible man and a good officer, and
will, I have no doubt, conduct himself in a manner to
merit your approbation.'

The bearer of the letter was Arthur WeUesley, after-
wards Duke of Wellington.

To the claims of another officer whose name is not
given, Comwallis turns a deaf ear. Dundas was
pressed to nominate to the Madras Council a civil
servant of whom Cornwallis knew a little too much.
It was not prudent, he says, to charge him with cor-
ruption which could not be proved, though it was
strongly suspected ; but in a letter to Dundas it is
shown that the appointment of a suspected intriguer
would be highly inexpedient. The whole adminis-
tration of Madras at that period required a more
thorough reform than Bengal. Another letter about
a young man, a member of Parliament who was pro-
ceeding to India, not in any official situation, might
have been written with eflFect at the present day.

' As Mr. is a member of Parliament, he may

be looked up to by the young men of the Settlement,
who have chiefly gone abroad at a very early period
of life, and are consequently very ill-informed in regard

INDIAN AFFAIRS 165

to European politics. Nothing could be so prejudicial
to themselves as well as to the general good order of
the Settlement as to instil into their minds a spirit of
party and of opposition to all government. Liberty
and equality is a most pernicious and dangerous doc-
trine in all parts of the world ; but it is particularly
ill-suited to the Company's servants in India, who are
to thrive by minding their own business and paying
a due regard to the commands of their superiors in
the service.'

In April, 1799, when the resistance to the Union
of Ireland was most felt, Comwallis sincerely repents
that he did not return to Bengal. In July he gets
a letter from the Marquess of Wellesley, then Lord
Momington, who had succeeded Sir John Shore, giving
an account of the assassination of Mr. Cherry at
Benares in an ^meute got up by the partisans of Vizir
All. This news filled him with sorrow, but a few
months afterwards a mail from India caused him
much gratification. After the final storming of Serin-
gapatam^ in May 1799, the army voted an address to
the late Commander-in-Chief, who had carried on two
campaigns against Tipti. The officers presented him
with the turban of the deceased ruler and the sword
of a Mar&th& chief. It was brought to England by
General Harris, great-grandfather of the present
Governor of Bombay (1890).

It is amusing to find Comwallis's old-standing and
strong dislike to Madras re-appearing in his disap-

l66 LORD CORNWALLIS

proTal of the plan of annexing Malabar to the Pre-
sidency. He would not, however, stir in the matter.
Dundas at the India Board was jealous of any inter-
ference with his own department, and there was quite
enough of controversial matters in Ireland without
any addition from Indian disputes and claims. It
may be mentioned while keeping clear of the Irish
controversy, that just as Comwallis was about to
leave, the Ministry had received information from
another quarter about a supposed conspiracy and an
intended massacre. It is characterised by Comwallis
as a great exaggeration, and the Duke of Portland is
recommended to accept with a degree of qualification
stories circulated in England regarding the state of
Ireland. The following extracts show the exact state
of his feelings on retirement from office ^ :—

* The joy that I should feel at being released from
a situation which, with regard to every idea of
enjoyment of life, has been most irksome to me, will
be greatly alloyed by my apprehension that I am
leaving a people who love me, and whose happiness
I had so nearly secured in a state of progressive
misery/

Three days afterwards he writes to another friend :
— ' You know me too well to doubt my being happy
at the thoughts of retirement, and you will likewise
believe that the ungracious circumstances that attend
it do not give me much concern, but the reflection of

^ MftjoMxeneral Eobs. May 12th, 1801.

IRISH ADMINISTRATION i6y

the misery to which a people are doomed who have
shown me every mark of gratitude and affection, and
the ultimate danger to which the convulsions in Ire-
land will expose the British Empire, are a severe alloy
to my prospects of future enjoyment/

On the a5th of May Lord Hardwicke had arrived
at Dublin and succeeded Comwallis. On the aSth
Comwallis was at Holyhead. On the 30th he writes
from Shrewsbury that the roads and the weather were
so bad that he cannot think of attempting to perform
the journey between that town and London in two
days. His Irish administration had been to him a
sore trial. His return to England was a release and
not a triumph. He had expressed a wish to retire
from his situation, and the Ministry had taken him at
his word. Still followed by correspondents in Ire-
land who claimed the fulfilment of alleged promises
and worried for recommendations to Lord Hardwicke,
Comwallis was glad to get to Culford and to enjoy
the society of his son, his daughter-in-law, and their
two children. Here his time was taken up with letters
about Indian taxation, which he says was loosely
mentioned in Minutes and papers written at the time
of the Permanent Settlement. ' It (the imposition of
other taxes) must be exercised with great prudence
and discretion, and must not be left to the capricious
will of the Governor. It has the disadvantage of
novelty, which is a very serious one in a country so
bigoted to old habits.' His repose was soon dis-

l68 LORD CORNWALLIS

turbed by the offer of the command of the Eastern
district.

Comwallis would have preferred an order to go to
Egypt, but always responding to the call of duty, he
took up his post at Colchester * without horses, house,
or aide-de-camp.' The forces at his disposal were
not more than eight weak regiments of militia,

* making about i:&8oo firelocks,' and two regiments of
dragoons. His very natural fears for the safety of
the country were somewhat allayed by the sight of
two line-of-battle ships and a 74 razie (cut down)
stationed near Clackton Beach and Walton Tower.

* In our wooden walls alone must we place our trust.
We should make a sad business of it on shore ; ' and
then he indulges in a hit at some evidently incom-
petent miUtary officer. * If it is really intended that

should defend Kent and Sussex, it is of very

little consequence what army you place under his
command.' In the month of August the public fear
of invasion began to subside. In the month of Sep-
tember, however, Cornwallis was still full of anxiety.
He saw no prospect of peace, and thought that a good
many men would be killed in Egypt. To Major-
General Ross he writes in the same letter: — *We
shall prepare for the land defence of England by
much wild and capricious expenditure of money,
and if the enemy should ever elude the vigilance
of our wooden walls, we shall, after all, make a bad
figure.'

MISSION TO FRANCE 169

A few days subsequently he was called on to pro-
ceed to France, in order to negotiate the Peace of
Amiens ; and with a hope that he might stiU give
an old friend * as good partridge shooting as Suffolk
can afford' at no distant date, he set out on his
diplomatic mission.

CHAPTER IX

The Peace of Amiens

The principal points in the negotiations which
ended in the Peace of Amiens are matters of history.
But a short account of them may be given in this
chapter, inasmuch as Indian affairs were the subject
of a brief discussion by Bonaparte and as they illus-
trate the capacity of the ex-Govemor-General for
dealing with politicians who were as disingenuous and
subtle as any Indian prince could be. Great Britain
wanted to recover some of her colonial possessions.
The English negotiators at the Preliminary Treaty
had been anxious that the French should evacuate
Egypt. There were other serious matters for discus-
sion regarding the Neapolitan and Roman States and
the restoration of Malta to the Knights of St. John.
And there was also the question of the release of
prisoners in both countries and the expenses of their
maintenance during captivity. Bonaparte wished for
peace in order to make a better preparation for war :
purposely delayed proceedings and threw the blame
of the delay on England ; used a haughty and dicta-

PARIS 171

torial tone in his correspondence about the form and
manner of the negotiations ; and throughout showed
his usual duplicity. As the final results are known
and are available to all readers, a few incidents of the
negotiations may be mentioned here, as they illus-
trate Comwallis's tact in negotiation.

Oomwallis left Dover early on the morning of
November 3rd, 1801, and reached Calais at ten
o'clock at night, after a stormy passage of fifteen
hours. He was received with all due respect and
honour, and pushed on almost at once to Paris. On
November the 8th he had an interview with Talley-
rand, whom he distrusted as unscrupulous. According
to this Prince, Bonaparte was very anxious (empress^)
to see the English plenipotentiary. The interview
took place on the loth of the month,, Talleyrand being
present, and we have this description of the meeting
in a letter to Lord Hawkesbury.

* Bonaparte was gracious to the highest degree.
He enquired particularly after His Majesty and the
state of his health, and spoke of the British nation in
terms of great respect, intimating that as long as we
remained friends, there would be no interruption of
the peace of Europe. I told him that the horrors
which succeeded the Revolution had created a general
alarm ; that all the neighbouring nations dreaded the
contagion ; that when, for the happiness of mankind,
and of France in particular, he was called to fill his
present situation, we knew him only as a hero and

172 LORD CORNWALLIS

a conqueror: but the good order and tranquillity
which the country now enjoyed made us respect him
as a statesman and a legislator^ and had removed
our apprehensions of having connection and intercourse
with France/ There were fireworks and illumina-
tions in the evening. The crowd of spectators was
orderly. Nothing but expressions of civility were
heard as Comwallis drove through the streets, and
when he went to the opera a few nights afterwards
he was 'greeted with loud and general acclama-
tions.'

Lord Comwallis, from his early travels on the
Continent, must have acquired a very fair command
of the French language, and at one time he evidently
expected to have several additional interviews with
the First Consul. But for some reason this plan was
not fully carried out, and the English Plenipotentiary
was referred for the whole discussion to Joseph Bona-
parte, who had the character of a * well-meaning
although not a very able man.' The two diplomatists
began their conference at Paris but soon shifted their
ground to Amiens. Before leaving the French capital
Comwallis had one more conference with Bonaparte
without the presence of a third person. It lasted
half-an-hour. Bonaparte's views and wishes are given
by Comwallis in another letter to Lord Hawkesbury
as follows : —

' He began the conversation by assurances of his
earnest desire for peace^ and avowed that it was much

BONAPARTE 173

wanted for his country, which had entirely lost its
commerce, and in a great degree exhausted its
pecuniary resources, adding, " You see that I conceal
nothing, ei que je parle franchement " : he desired
only to adhere, in the arrangement of the Definitive
Treaty, to the full intent and meaning of the pre-
liminary articles, and as I should find M. Joseph
Bonaparte a just and fair man, he made no doubt
that everything would be speedily adjusted.'

The remainder of this memorable interview was
occupied with the principal matters in dispute: the
departure of the French fleet for St. Domingo, and the
chagrin of the First Consul at our remonstrances on
this expedition : the indemnity to the Stadtholder and
the House of Orange : a suggested provision for the
King of Sardinia : the strange proposal to admit a
Russian garrison into Malta, which Bonaparte justly
characterised as equally mischievous and detrimental
to England and France : the cession of the island of
Tobago : the charge for the maintenance of prisoners :
and the desire of the First Consul to negotiate with a
Naw&b for the cession of a ^ few leagues of territory
round Pondicherry.' To this latter proposal Corn-
wallis at once replied by stating that there was no
Naw&b with whom the French could treat, and that
any such addition of territory would only tend to
embroil the two nations. Vous Stes bien dur, was
Bonaparte's reply. He added that if there could be
a mutual agreement for the removal of disaffected or

174 LORD CORNWALLIS

dangerous persons from either country, he would be
quite willing to send United Irishmen away.

So ended this conference. The discussion was re-
newed at Amiens by Joseph Bonaparte and Comwallis.
It continued all through December, 1 8oi, and January
and February, i8oa. The serious part of the corre-
spondence is here relieved by a lively letter from Lord
Brome to his father*s friend. General Hope. He, Lord
Brome, had been occupied with Parisian sights in the
morning and with dinners of forty and fifty people
in the evening, who had ^ the dress of mountebanks
and the manners of assassins.* He had seen an odd
mixture of ladies, amongst whom was Talleyrand's
mistress, whom he calls Mme. Grand, and who was, of
course, the divorced wife of M. Le Grand, who figured
in a celebrated case in the Supreme Court of Calcutta
in connection with Philip Francis. Every Anglo-
Indian knows the exclamation of a Puisne Judge of
that tribunal to his colleague. Sir Elijah Impey, C.J.,
when the latter cast Francis in damages to the extent
of 50,000 rupees : * Siccas, brother Impey I siccas I'

The sessions of the Corps Ldgislatif did not fill
Lord Brome with reverence : — ' No puppet-show
could be more ridiculous.' 'There came in a man
dressed in a sort of mountebank dress, who, it was
natural to imagine, was going to exhibit on the tight
rope, but who turned out to be Citizen Chaptal, Minis-
ter of the Interior.' This man, the son of a small
apothecary, became distinguished as a chemist, and

JOSEPH BONAPARTE 1 75

was amongst the fii*st persons who set up large factories
for the manufacture of sugar from beet-root. And
then the negotiations went slowly on. Joseph Bona-
pai*te, in the opinion of Comwallis, improved into a
* very sensible, modest, gentlemanlike man, totally free
from diplomatic chicanery, and fair and open in all
his dealings.' To a request from Lady Spencer that
certain articles of glass might pass free of duty, Corn-
wallis found time to answer that though averse to all
contraband traffic, he would take care that her glass
should be brought over with his own baggage, on his
return. Of the society at Amiens an amusing picture
is given in a letter from Colonel Nightingale, who
was one of the suite of the British Plenipotentiary, to
Boss. The majority of the male sex at Amiens might,
without deviating from truth, be called rogues, and
many of the females, with equal propriety, something
worse.

Joseph Bonaparte was the best among them, al-
though he had not the manners of a gentleman. His
wife was a vulgar little woman, without anything to
say for herself. She had been Mdlle. Clary, and lived
down to 1845. To the Prefect was applied the epithet
given by one of the friends of Charles Surface to the
picture of Sir Oliver. This man had been a member
of the National Convention and had voted for the
death of the king. Comwallis, as might be ex-
pected, was very civil to all these local notabilities :
gave large dinners twice a week, as he had done at

176 LORD CORNWALLIS

Calcutta ; and rode out every day when not prevented
by the weather or by swellings in the legs, of which
there had already been an ominous mention in some
of the letters from Dublin.

Throughout January, February, and the greater
part of March, iSoiz, the terms of the proposed Treaty
were sifted, analysed, and pulled to pieces till the
patience of Comwallis was nearly exhausted. ' What
can be expected,' he writes, * from a nation naturally
overbearing and insolent, when all the powers of
Europe are prostrating themselves at its feet and
supplicating for forgiveness and future favour, except
one little island, which by land at least is reduced to
a strict, and at best, a very inconvenient defensive ? '
More than once he was in dread of the renewal of a
bloody war or the alternative of the dishonour and
degradation of his country. He wished ' himself
again in the backwoods of America, at two hundred
miles distance from his supplies, or on the banks of
the Cau very without the means of either using or with-
drawing his heavy artillery.' At length, however,
every difficulty was surmounted in one way or other :
the stipulations in favour of the Prince of Orange, the
articles relating to the Porte, the arrangement about
Malta and Portugal, with some compromises and con-
cessions, were all definitely settled. The Peace was
concluded and the Declaration signed on March ii5th,
1802. The signatures were affixed to the Treaty a
few days afterwards. Almost anticipating an expres-

PEACE OF AMIENS 177

sion employed by another British statesman more
than seventy years afterwards, Cornwallis had hoped
for a * peace that will not dishonour the country/ and
one Hhat would afford as reasonable a prospect of
a future safety as the present very extraordinary
circumstances of Europe would admit.'

The table on which this Treaty was signed is, writes
the editor of .the Cornwallis Correspondence^ still pre-
served in the H6tel de Ville at Amiens. At one end
of the apartment there is a full-length picture of the
Plenipotentiaries and their suites. The portrait of
Cornwallis is not unlike but the painting is in-
different. ' In the background an English officer is
cordially embracing one of the French suite.'

CHAPTER X
Betubn to India. Folict. Death

On his return from Amiens Comwallis found some-
thing to interest him in the elections and his letters
are amusingly illustrative of the way in which such
political events were managed in those times. There
was an election for the county of Suffolk, in which
there *was reason to expect the most perfect una-
nimity.' This election had to give way to the claims
of the races at Newmarket, and was postponed for
three days in consequence. But there was rather
more excitement about the return of two members
for the borough of Eye. Comwallis is careful to state
that his party neither bribed nor treated in what was
practically a pocket borough, and that a majority had
been secured of four to one incontestable voters, after
deducting paupers and those who had purchased meal
at a reduced price during the scarcity. The elections
ended satisfactorily by the return of two members of
the Comwallis family who each polled 114 votes, their
opponents obtaining fifteen apiece.

In November, 1 802, Comwallis writes : * I am still

CULFORD 179

equal to a pretty good day's fag in shooting, but I
think that I rather train off as a marksman ; this sport,
however, amuses me, and is an inducement to take
exercise, which I am persuaded is right.' The affairs
of India again occupied his attention. He was con-
sulted about a suggestion for giving Jonathan Duncan,
who had been a successful administrator of the Pro-
vince of Benares, and who was then Governor of
Bombay, a seat in Council in Bengal, and placing him
at the head of the whole Revenue department. At the
same time, too, he seems to have been asked privately
whether he would care again to go to Ireland as
Commander-in-Chief. Nothing came of this, nor is
there any trace of the offer in the State Papers.

He sat to Hoppner the well-known portrait painter,
and in this fashion some months passed away. But
he was quite ready to do the State further service, and
even Culford, with its rural pleasures and occupations,
began to pall. * To sit down quietly by myself, without
occupation or object, to contemplate the dangers of my
country, with the prospect of being a mere cypher,
without arms in my hands,' was not pleasing to a
man whose previous life had been usefully and
actively spent. In a letter written in September,
1803, he notes that it was not his fault that he did
not again go to Ireland He would not have meddled
with politics, and would have been entirely under the
Lord-Lieutenant. As it was he considered himself to
be ' laid quietly on the shelf.' As Constable of the

M 2

l8o LORD CORNWALUS

Tower he was plagued with applications some of
which must have been rather absurd, and the King
himself was anxious for his return to Ireland.

About the end of 1804, Comwallis expressed some
anxiety as to the success of Lord Wellesley's policy in
India^ an anxiety which was not justified by the result.
And probably owing to these views and to wishes
expressed either by the Ministry or the Court of
Directors, or both, he began seriously to consider
about his return to that country. The Court of
Directors for some time past had been alarmed at
Lord Wellesley's vigorous foreign policy. Castlereagh
at the Board of Control had taken fright, and even
Pitt was carried away and committed himself to a
hasty opinion that the Governor-General had acted
imprudently and illegally. So, after a little more
consideration, Comwallis decided again to accept the
offer of the Governor-Generalship. He was to discuss
Lidian politics with the President of the Board of
Control in the winter, and to arrange for a landing
in Bengal by the latter end of the south-west
Monsoon.

He was then entering on his sixty-seventh year.
To men of the present generation, accustomed to weigh
all the chances of health and efficiency in an Lidian
climate with regard to their individual constitutions, it
seems extraordinary that no medical opinion should
have been taken. Swellings in the feet and increasing
weakness of body had been apparent for some little

INDIA l8i

time. He himself spoke of the adventure 'as a
desperate act/ No English statesman has ever taken
office in India at so advanced an age. Lord Hardinge
went out as Governor-General when he was fifty-nine.
Lord Lawrence, after a long previous service as a
Bengal Civilian, had had six years' comparative rest
in England, and became Viceroy at fifty-four. Other
statesmen, such as Wellesley and Dalhousie, were in
their thirty-fifth or thirty-sixth year. But duty was
paramount with Comwallis. He had not sought the
high office, but he would not refuse to accede to the
combined request of a political associate and his old
masters the Court of Directors.

Dr. Dick, his medical attendant in Lidia on the pre-
vious occasion, offered his services in the same capacity.
But Comwallis thought the embarkation of ' himself
on the Medusa Frigate, attended by his physician,'
would sound ridiculous. In the present day every
Viceroy has long had a physician as an officer of his
suite, just as he has a Private Secretary, a Military
Secretary, and four or more Aides-de-Camp. Directly
his intended departure became known he was over-
whelmed with 'absurd and ridiculous applications.'
If the Company ' was to hire forty large vessels ' they
could not carry one half the persons who had asked
for situations in which they might eat a piece of bread.
Comwallis left England in the spring of 1805, and
after touching at Madras, landed in Calcutta on the
29th of July of that year.

l82 LORD CORNWALLIS

Events had succeeded each other with startling
rapidity since he lefb the country in the autumn of
1793. ^&t the mild and pacific policy of his imme-
diate successor, carried on with the avowed object of
maintaining peace by the mere balance of power
between the various native states, liad failed in its
aims and was unsuited to the age and country^ is
now almost universally admitted. With the arrival
of the Wellesleys the whole scene was transformed.
In six years' time the British axmies, directed by one
brother in the Council and commanded by another in
the field, were everywhere triumphant. The capital
of Tipti Sultin was stormed. The French battalions
at Haidarfibfid were disbanded, and the Niz&m, from
an envious rival or a halting friend, became an
obedient ally. The Mar&th& powers that had risen
on the ruins of the crumbling Mughal Empire, were
shattered. The Madras Presidency had swelled to its
present dimensions. We had acquired what are now
known as the North- Western Provinces of India. We
had the Peshwi for our vassal. Monson's disastrous
retreat before Holkar, and Lake's failure to take
Bhartpur, for years afterwards the never-failing sub-
jects of jeers and gibes in the bfizdrs of India and
amongst the disaffected classes, had been the only
undertakings not crowned with a splendid success. It
was not likely that masterly combinations could be
carried out without straining the financial and mili-
tary resources of British India. And when Sindhia,

INDIA 183

in spite of his overthrow, was anxious to renew war-
like operations, and Holkar had never been subdued,
Comwallis appeared on the scene with orders from
home to substitute negotiations and diplomacy for
war, and almost to abandon the proud position of the
Paramount Power which^ foreshadowed by Hastings
for the Company^ in spite of doubts and hesitations,
had been attained by Wellesley.

The first act of Comwallis on his arrival was to
make preparations for a visit to the Upper Provinces.
He wrote to Lord Lake to warn him against engaging
in any acts of aggression and renewal of military opera-
tions. He informed the Secret Committee that he
trusted, on arriving in Upper India, to terminate by
negotiations and without any sacrifice of honour, a
contest in which the most brilliant successes could
afford no solid benefit, and which threatened the
gravest financial complications. To the Court of
Directors he explained that he should be compelled to
detain the ships carrying treasure to China^ and to
apply to Madras for five lacks of rupees to carry on
his government. He had fully made up his mind
that subsidiary treaties were a mistake^ and that they
burdened the Indian Qovemment with useless native
dependants and allies. He expected no advantage
from a contest with Holkar and Sindhia^ as they had
no territory to lose. . And as a proof of his strong
feeling on this point, he was anxious to give, up the
alliances with the Jdt chief of Bhartpur, the Edjd

l84 LORD CORNWALLIS

of Macheri, and the IUai& of Oohad. There was con-
Biderable correspondence in regard to the last-men-
tioned State, and it is only fair to the memory and
character of Comwallis to state here in his own words
the exact policy which he intended to pursue and
which has been more or less condemned by Anglo-
Indian historians. In a letter to Lord Lake, written
about a fortnight before his own death, he fully
explains his meaning and intentions.

*i. To make over to Sindhia the possessions of
Gwalior and Gohad.

* 2. To transfer to him, according to the provisions

of the treaty of peace, the districts of Dholpur,

B&ri^ and Bajkerrie, and to account to Sindhia

for the collections from these districts since the

peace.

^ I am aware that this is not to be considered in the

light of a concession^ but I am willing to relinquish

that stipulation of the treaty which prohibits Sindhia

from stationing a force in these districts, an object

which I should suppose to be highly desirable to that

chieftain.

* 3. The eventual restoration of the Jainagar tribute,

amounting, as I understand, to the annual sum
of 3 lacks of rupees.

* 4. To require from Sindhia his consent to the abro-

gation of the pensions, and to the resumption
of the Jaghfrs in the Do&b, established by the
treaty of peace.

GWALIOR AND GONAD 185'

* 5. To require from Sindhia the relinqaishment of

his claim to the arrears of his pension.
' 6. To demand a compensation for the public and
private losses sustained by the plunder of the
Residency.

* 7. To require Sindhia to make a provision for the

B&n& of Gohad to the extent of 2i or 3 lacks

of rupees, which I should conceive should be

amply sufficient.'

He goes on to say that he proposes to cede nothing

to Sindhia which it is any object to retain: that

Sindhia must understand that the British Government

does not admit his right to either Gohad or Gwalior,

and that the transfer of these places is an entirely

gratuitous one on our part ; and that he was disposed

to act in concert with Sindhia, as an ally against

Holkar. And he was also prepared to restore to

Holkar territory conquered by the British forces.

He declared that his object was to restore to the
Native States that confidence in the justice and
moderation of the British Government which past
events had considerably impaired, and which appeared
essential to the security and tranquillity of the British
dominions. And thenfollow about three pages regard-
ing the claims of the B&n& of Gohad. The position of
this chieftain was peculiar, and from a most trust-
worthy source it may be stated as follows.

The Governor of Gohad, named Ambaji Inglia, had,
in 1803, thrown off his allegiance to Sindhia, and

i86 LORD CORNWALLIS

joined the British forces on the understanding that
he was to surrender to them the fort of Gwalior, and
certain districts which the Qoyemment intended to
confer on the R&n&. Thirty years before this time
Warren Hastings had made a treaty with the B&nd,
and the joint forces of the R&ni and the English then
retook Owalior, which Sindhia had previously seized.
The R&n& subsequently was thrown over, on the
ground that he had been guilty of treachery, and then
Sindhia retook Gwalior and Oohad. This latter
place is some twenby-eight miles from QwaUor, now
Sindhia's capital, and the J&t chiefs had established
themselves there in the beginning of the eighteenth
century, like so many others in troublous times.

At the close of the successful campaign of 1803 the
position of Sindhia and Gohad was this. Sindhia. by
the Treaty of Surjee Angengam, had agreed to re-
nounce all claim on his feudatories with whom the
British Government had made treaties. The Bi.n& of
Gohad was clearly one of those feudatories, but
taking advantage of the wording of the treaty and of
the B&n&*s recent conduct, Sindhia contended that the
treaties alluded to which he was bound to respect,
could not include the Bdn&, inasmuch as his pre-
tensions had been extinguished and his territories had
been in Sindhia's possession for thirty years. The
obvious reply to this claim was, that recent conquest
and separate treaties with theB&n^ concluded in 1803
and 1804, by Lord Wellesley, had reversed their posi-

DHOLPUR 187

tions, and had restored the B^&'s old rights and
claims to our protection^. But Comwallis was so
deeply impressed with the necessity for concluding a
general pacification of the country, so convinced of
the inabiUty of the Kdn4 to manage his possessions,
collect the revenues, and preserve tranquillity, and so
apprehensive of the dangers and vexations of a direct
British Administration forced on us by failure of the
native rule, that he was quite ready to annul or dis-
regard the stipulation in the treaty, and to restore
Gohad and Gwalior to Sindhia. It is true that he
intended to compensate the B&n& for this loss, and
vnthin a few months after the death of Cornwallis,
his temporary successor. Sir George Barlow, granted
to the B4n& the sovereignty over the districts of
Dholpur, Biri, and Rajkerrie. The Chambal river
became the boundary between Dholpur and Sindhia.
BAj& Kirat Sing, of Dholpur, took rank as one of the
B&jput Princes, lived to a great age, died in 1836,
and was succeeded by a chief who protected British
fugitives and behaved loyally in the mutiny of

1857.

For this one special provision and for the retransfer
of Gwalior to the Mardthds, there is really a good
deal, but for the general and prompt reversal of
Wellesley's policy there is very little, to be said.
The Rdnd. had no claim as the representative of an
ancient family. From a mere landholder he had

' Sir C. Aitohison's Treatiu, vol. iv.

1 88 LORD CORNWALLIS

become a chiefbain, and the loss of Gohad was made
up to him by the gain of Dholpur. The cession to
Owalior was followed by the discontinuance of the
pensions paid by Government to Sindhia's officers,
amoimting to fifteen lacks of rupees, but was coupled
with other stipulations very advantageous to the
Marithds. They will be clearly seen by the sub-
joined excellent summary taken from the Treaties and
ETtgagemerds of Sir C. Aitchison : —

' A Treaty was concluded on a3rd of November,
1805, which confirmed the Treaty of Sarge Angen-
gaum, except what might be altered by this Treaty,
ceded Owalior and Gohad to Sindhia, abolished the
pensions of fifteen lacks a year paid by Govern-
ment to Sindhia's officers, constituted the Chambal
the northern boundary of Sindhia's territory, de-
prived Sindhia of all claim to tribute from Biindi
or any State north of the Chambal and east of
Kotah, bound the British not to make treaties with
l5^daipur, Jodhpur, Kotah, or other chiefs tributary
to Sindhia in M&lw& or Mewir, or to interfere with
the arrangements which Sindhia might make in regard
to them ; and granted a pension of four lacks a year
to Sindhia^ and Jaghlrs of two lacks to his wife
Baiza B&i^ and one lack to his daughter, Chamna
B&iV

Whatever admiration may be entertained for Com-
wallis, his character, motives, and internal reforms, it

* Vol. V. p. 200.

NATIVE STATES 189

is impossible not to condemn the foreign policy which
he sketched and which his successor completed.
Sindhia had no special claim on our forbearance and
gratitude. He had invited defeat by our forces, and
had intrigued with our secret and open foes. The
abandonment of the high-spirited B&jput Princes to
Mar&th& rapacity was denounced by Lord Lake, and
was not creditable to the British name. Concessions
to Holkar who had deserved nothing at our hands,
only served to whet his appetite for plunder and to
stimulate his insolent and revengeful spirit. The
policy of 1805 had the effect of * allowing the whole
of HindusUn, beyond its own boundaries, to become a
scene of fearful strife, lawless plunder, and frightful
desolation for many succeeding years, until the same
horrors invaded its own sacred precincts, and involved
it in expensive and perilous wai*fare, the result of
which was its being obliged to assume what it had so
long mischievously declined, the avowed supremacy
over all the States and Princes of Hindust&n.'

This policy has been condemned by historians and
commentators, as well as by statesmen, soldiers, and
diplomatists ; by Mill and his editor, H. H. Wilson, and
by Thornton ; by Lord Lake and Sir John Malcolm.
The mischief was done and the loss of influence was
not regained for a decade. It was not till the con-
clusion of an expensive and protracted campaign, that
the Lidian Government was replaced in the position
where it had been left by Wellesley. The blame of

I90 LORD CORNWALLIS

this weak and unfortunate policy must be divided
between Comwallis and Barlow, between the Court
of Directors and the Board of Control.

The end was now nigh. The Governor-General
had assumed his office on July 30th. The Marquess
of Wellesley did not leave India till the 29th of
August, BO that there must have been some time for
the two statesmen to interchange views and to discuss
all present and future policy. On the 8th of August
Comwallis was at Barrackpur, and for nearly two
months his state barge was being towed slowly
against the current of the Ganges, swollen by the
rains, in his progress to the Upper Provinces. During
this time he was constantly writing or dictating State
Papers, and whatever condemnation may be passed
on their substance, it is not possible to discern in the
style any traces of a failing intellect. Bead from his
point of view the diction and reasoning are still clear
and precise. It was hoped that the air of the river,
which has occasionally saved the lives of Indian
officers struck down by fever or dysentery, would have
restored him to something like health and activity.
But it was too late. His last public letter is dated
Sept. 23rd. After that we are dependent on the
letters of secretaries and friends. There was a slight
rally on Ihe 25th. On the 5th of October he expired
at Gh&zipur. He had been removed on the 29th of
September from his boat to a house at that station.

The inhabitants of Calcutta and other residents in

ILLNESS AND DEATH 191

diffeient parts of India wei-e profoundly moved. At
a meeting convened by the sheriff of Calcutta, held on
October 29th, it was resolved that in order to express
the public sense of his virtues, a memorial should be
erected in his honour. The native inhabitants sent a
letter to the Chairman of the same meeting signifying
their grateful sense of his just and honourable ad-
ministration, and intimating that they regarded him
as their guardian and benefactor. Copies of the reso-
lutions passed at this meeting were sent to Madras
and Bombay, to Ceylon, Penang, and Fort Marl-
borough. Subscriptions were invited and a com-
mittee was formed. A funeral sermon was preached
at Madras by the order of the Governor, Lord William
Bentinck, on the 9th of November. The text was
taken from the 24th verse of the 35th chapter
of the Second Book of Chronicles, *And all Judah
and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.' A correspondent
of the Calcutta Gazette prefaced some verses to his
memory by the well-known and well-timed quotation
from the Agricola of Tacitus, ' Finis vitae ejus nobis
luctuosus, amicis tristis, extraneis etiam ignotisque
non sine curfl, fuit.' On the 17th of November, what
was termed ^ an eloquent and appropriate sermon '
was preached by the Rev. N. Wade, at Bombay, pre-
ceded by a choral service which *for taste, judgment,
and execution, far exceeded anything of the kind in
India.' The text chosen, not perhaps very happily,
was from the ^ist verse of the 9th chapter of

19a LORD CORNWALLIS

the First Book of the Maccabees, 'How is the
valiant man fallen, that delivered Israel.'

Cornwallis lies at Oh&zfpur, in a monument de-
scribed as a domed quasi-Grecian building, with a
marble statue by Flaxman ^. There is another statue
in the Town Hall of Calcutta, and an excellent full-
length portrait hangs on the walls of the Council
Chamber at Government House in the same city. He
is painted in uniform, and has for his companions Clive ;
WaiTcn Hastings, in knee-breeches and velvet coat ;
Lord Wellesley ; Lord Minto, with a scroll in his
hand ; and, last of all, Mr. Adam, who, in the interval
between the departure of the Marquess of Hastings
and the arrival of Lord Amherst, caused J. S. Buck-
ingham to be deported for an offence against the
censorship of the press. The statue of Cornwallis in
the Town Hall is by Bacon, junior. It is not one of
the sculptor's happiest efforts ; and the garb of an
ancient Koman, though in the taste of the day, does
not set off the Governor-General to advantage. The
two female figures at the base of the statue, with a
mirror and a serpent, signifying justice and truth,
belong to no particular age or country. From a
cornucopia ore poured out all sorts of Indian vegetables
and fruits — the pine-apple and the custard-apple,
mangoes and Hchisy Indian com and rice-stalks ;
and we discern a lion's skin, a club, and a bundle of
arrows. The work is inferior to the bronze statue of

* Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. v, p, 70.

CHARACTER 1 93

Lord William Bentinck, in the open air in front of the
same Town Hall, and far below Foley's splendid
equestrian statue of Lord Hardinge.

The character of Comwallis has been drawn by
more than one historian, and not always with fair-
ness. In Thornton's History of British India, his
mental constitution is described as the highest order
of commonplace. He is said to have been entirely
destitute of originality, and to have represented the
spirit, the opinions, and the prejudices of his own
age. This historian adds that, although he enjoyed
an extraordinary degree of reputation during his life-
time, its artificial brilliancy soon passed away.

Mill, while admitting the generous policy of the
Permanent Settlement, declares that it was dictated
in some measure by prejudice, and attributes to Corn-
wallis, himself an aristocrat, the intention of estab-
lishing an aristocracy on the European model. No
one who has carefully studied the public and private
lives of the eminent men who have been selected from
the two great political parties of England and have
ruled Lidia at eventful times, would place Cornwallis
on the same platform as Wellesley and Dalhousie, or
would compare him for ability, vigour, and energy to
that servant of the East Lidia Company who, from a
writer, became Governor-General, and was not re-
warded by a diadem. But there was nothing com-
monplace about Comwallis ; and if in some points he
reflected and acted on the opinions of his time, in

194 LORD CORN W ALUS

others he was far ahead of it. In his contempt for
jobbery; his determination to place the Company's
servants^ whom he transformed from merchants to
administrators, above the reach of temptation ; in his
anxiety to protect native rights and interests ; in
constructive ability and in tenacity of purpose, he
may challenge a comparison with some of the most
eminent men who have ruled India.

His aristocratical prejudices — if they be so con-
sidered-were really just what suited Ms position and
aims. It may be truly said that they cannot be cast
aside by any statesman who thoroughly comprehends
the peoples whom he has to govern, and the problems
which he ought to solve. There is nothing demo-
cratic in the various strata of Indian society. From
its earliest traditions to its recent history it has been
the sanctuary of privilege. Its tribes worship pomp
and pageantry, and are reconciled to an apparent in-
equality, over which every man of talent and capacity
hopes to triumph. It may be taken as an axiom that
the general sense of the natives is in favour of marked
gradations of rank, and of exemption from restraints
and restrictions, while at the same time a value is
set on impartial justice, inviolate good faith, and incor-
ruptible integrity. Guilds and fraternities, associations
of traders, community of interests between co-parce-
nary communities, are not democratic, but if anything
oligarchical ; and caste, in all its endless ramifications,
is a symbol of honour and not a badge of disgrace.

CHARACTER 195

Comwallis may perhaps be best described as a
statesman on whom the Ministry of the day could
always rely. His patriotism, his regard for disci*-
pline, his sense of duty to the State, were the qualities
which attained their fullest development in Welling-
ton. A statesman who purified and reconstituted the
civil administration of a great Empire ; who promul-
gated a code of law on lines which were followed
by more experienced legislators ; who carried out the
Union of Ireland in despite of avowed enemies and
of injudicious friends ; who induced a military despot
to agree to a treaty, in which every step might
have led to a snare or a pitfall ; possessed qualities
which ought to mitigate censure, and did much that
in balancing accounts should be placed to his credit.

Comwallis overflows in Minutes and State Papers, as
well as in private correspondence. His writings are
not, like those of Wellesley and Dalhousie, close in
reasoning, splendid from their sustained eloquence,
and broad and far-reaching in aim ; but they are
replete with sound sense and right feeling, and his
deliverances on thorny and intricate questions prove
that he had the faculty of apprehending the salient
points of new subjects, for which he could not have
been prepared by his previous learning in Parliament
or in camp. Moreover, his life was one of almost unin-
terrupted devotion to duty and work. Other statesmen,
who before and after him filled a similar office in India>
have returned home, and have taken comparatively

N %

196 LORD CORNWALLIS

but a slight share in politics. Some succumbed to the
rapid death which carried off Achilles, or were victims
to the slow decay which undermined the strength and
vigour of Tithonus. But Cornwallis had little or no
rest. From America to the Continent ; from England
to India ; from India to Ireland and back to India to
die, his whole career was one of duty and self-sacrifice.
It may be added that his private life was estimable
and pure. His letters to relations and friends breathe
a spirit of the truest friendship and regard^ and it is
a trite quotation, ' Bonum virum facile crederes :
magnum Ubenter/

The family of Cornwallis is extinct in the male
line. The son of the Governor-General — the Viscount
Brome, mentioned in the correspondence — succeeded
his father, as second Marquess, and died leaving no
male issue, in 1823. His sister, the Lady Mary
Cornwallis, married, in 1815, Mark Singleton, then
an ensign in the guards. At the death of the second
Marquess, the earldom passed to the Bishop of Lichfield,
and then to his son James. At his death, in 1852, the
title became extinct. But the descendants of Corn-
wallis are still to be found in the following families.
The eldest daughter of the second Marquess mai^'ried
the third Lord Braybrooke. Two of the sons of this
marriage fell in the Crimea — one at Balaclava, and
the other at Inkerman. The present peer, the fifth
Lord Braybrooke, is great-grandson to the Governor-
General. Another descendant, Charles Cornwallis

mma

HIS DESCENDANTS 197

Eoss, who also died in the Crimea, was the grandson
of the second Marquess, by Lady Mary Ross. Lady
Jemima, another daughter of the same peer, married
the third Earl of St. Germans. One son of this
marriage. Captain Eliot, was killed at Likerman.
The present Earl St. Germans and the Hon. Charles
Eliot, issue of the same marriage, are still alive.
Those who have not yet ceased to believe in the
hereditary character of worth, may be glad to know
that the line of the Founder of all sound Indian
Administration has not quite passed away.

INDEX

-♦-•-

ActX of 1859, ^34*
AiTOHESON, Sir Charles,K. C. S.I.,

Treaties, 188.
Amsrioa, operations in, ia-i6.
Arcot, Naw^b of, 139.
Abht, condition of, 8a.

BardwIn, Mahir^j^ of, 14a.
Bablow, Sir George, 187.
BIzXbs, 39, 40.
Benabes, Settlement of, lao-

130.
Bekoal, Aspect and Commerce

ofy 145-154-
Bonafabte, Joseph, 174-177.

Bonafabte, Napoleon, 1 71-173.

Bbome, Lord, ai, 108, 174.

Calcutta, social customs, 108-
III.

Canning, Earl of, 137.

Chambebs, Lady, 11 1.

Chebby, assassination of, 165.

Clebfait, General, 157.

COLLECTOE, powers of, 8d-88.

CoBNWALLis Code, 95.

CoBNWALLis, Marquess : family,
7, 8 : education and marriage,
9: campaign in America,
11-15: offer of Governor-
Generalship refused, 17 :
renewed offer and accept-

ance, 18: campaigns against
TiptL, a a, a3 : Settlement of
Land Revenue, a5 : discussion
with Shore, 37-41 : view of
the interests of Zamind^ and

Ryot> 31-37* 4^1 47 • sacrifice
of future revenue, 73 ; corre-
spondence with Dundas ; Com-
pany's Charter, appointment
by Court of Directors, patron-
age, 75-84: Executive and
Judicial reforms, 88-97 :
opinion of English and Na-
tive troops, 97-99 : forecast
of the Mutiny, 99 : his patron-
age and hatred of jobbery,
101-105 : private life and
hospitality, 1 07-1 11 : visit to
Benares, 114: departure from
India, 116 : arrival in Eng-
land, 118 : views on Benares
Settlement, lao: deputation
to Flanders, 157, 158 : pur-
chase of house and land in
England, 159 : mutiny of
officers in Bengal; intended
return to India, i6a : goes
to Ireland as Viceroy and
Conmiander - in - Chief, 163:
address from officers after
Seringapatam, 165 : view
of Native Taxation, 167 :

INDEX

199

command of Eastern district,
168: mission to Bonaparte;
interview with, 171-173 : ne-
gotiates Peace of Amiens, 176 ;
views on English elections,
178: returns to India, 187:
reversal of Wellesley's policy,
184-187 : sickness and death
at Gh^pur, 190 : sermon on
his death, 191, 192 : character,
1 93-196 : Comwallis's family,
origin of, 7, 8 : extinction of,

195-197-
CoBNWALLis, Statue of, 192.

Courts of Justice, 89-94.

CuLPORD, 113, 179.

Dholpub, Riji of, 187.
DiBEOTORS, Court of, Patron-
age, Trade, 76-81.
Duncan, Jonathan, 121, 179.
DuNDAS, Henry, 75, 162 : 98-

lOI.

Ganj, Wholesale Market, 39,

40.
GhAzifcr, Mausoleum of Com-

wallis, 192.
GoHAD, 184-186.

GWALIOB, 183-187.

Habdwicke, Earl of, 167.
Habinoton, John Herbert, on

rights and position of Zamln-

d^, 32-35.
HIt, Bi-weekly Markets, 39-

40.

iMPEr, Sir Elijah, 106.

Indian Army, discontent o(

161.
Ireland, 163-167.

Jones, Sir William, 109.

KA.UNITZ, General, 157.

Klzf, Muhammadan officer, 94.

Lake, Lord, 183, 184.

Macaulat on Hastings, 105,

106.
Madras, Settlement of, 139-

141.
MAULAvf, Muhammadan officer,

190, 194.
Mill, James, opinion of Corn-

wallis, 193.

Pandit, Law Officer, 94.
Patni Tffluks, 142-145.
Pearoe, Colonel, 1 11, 114.

Quinquennial Register, 153.

Regulations, IX of 1793 :
XXVII of 1795: VII of
1799: Vof 1812, 131, 134.

Regulations of Benares, 122,

"9> 131, 137-
Resumption of rent-free Tenures,

148-153-
Ryot, 53-58 : 131-137.

Sale Laws in Bengal, 146-148.
Shore, Sir John. Settlement

for term of years, 28, 30, 37,

38, 116.

200

INDEX

Survey (Revenue), 153-155.

Willis, Dr., 103,

Thornton, History of British

India, 193.
Tipu Sult^, 20-33.

Warren Hastings, correspond-
ence with, 105, 106, 118.
Wellington, Duke of, 164.

York, Duke of, 158.

ZamIndIr of Benares, 123, 124.

ZamIndar of Bengal, rights,

duties, position, 3-36, 38-40,

43-48> 51-53.

APPENDIX

-♦♦-

\^Note on the object of this memoir and the authorities referred to

by the Author.']

The Irish administration of Cornwallis has been de-
signedly excluded from this memoir, the object being to
show what Cornwallis effected as a Ruler of India. And
in this view chapters have been added descriptive of the
extension of the Perpetual Settlement to other Provinces
besides Bengal and Behar, and of the supplementary legis-
lation which was found indispensable to the completion of
the same Settlement in the Lower Provinces. The sources of
information to which the Author has had recourse are the
following : —

The Cornwallis Correspondence, Edited, with accurate
and copious notes, by Charles Ross, Esq., 3 vols., 1858.

The celebrated Fifth Report of the House of Commons
on the Affairs of India, 181 2.

The Regulations and Acts of the GovemmeTvt of India
from 1793 to 1859 inclusive.

The Judicial Decisions of the Sadr Diwdni Addlat
from 1793 to 1862 and the svhsequent Decisions of the High
Court of Calcutta.

3 vols, of manuscript notes taken between 1857 *^<1
i860 inclusive, by the Author of this memoir, during a
systematic and unofficial enquiry into the rents, rights, and
privileges of the Tenant-proprietors of Bengal and into
village and agricultural customs.

202 APPENDIX

CalevMa Eeview, 1857 to 1859; articles by the Author
on Life in the Bice Fields, Bengal Village Biographies, and
the Owner of the Soil,

Eejport of the Indigo Commismon, i860.

Life of Sir John Shore, First Lord Teignmouth, by his
Son, 2 vols. 1843.

Lives of Indian Officers, by the late Sir John Kaye,
X. C.S.I.

Lives of Eminent British Commanders, in Vol. 11 of
Dr. Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia.

Selections from Calcutta Gazettes, by the Author,
3 vols.

Bevenue Handbook, by the late James H. Young,
Bengal C. S.

The Imjperial Gazetteer, by Sir William W. Hunter,
Iv.O.S.X., G.l.£j.

The N,' W, Provinces Gazetteer.

Beports of the Officers of the Survey in Bengal and
Behar ; especially those of Capt. W. Sherwill.

Beport of the Government of Bengal on the Proposed
Amendment of the Law of Landlord amd TenarU, 1883.

Two volumes (anonymous) on the Zaminddri Settlement,
1879.

Divers other Blue Books and Exports.

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OFINIONS OF THE PRESS ON ' DALHOUSIE ' (continued).

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* It is almost superfluous to say that the book is characterised by the
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* Colonel Malleson has broken ground new to the general reader.
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-M-

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COLONEL MALLESON'S 'DUFLEIX.*

' In the character of Dupleix there was the element of greatness that
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if suffered to have full play, might have ended in giving the whole of
Southern India to France. Even as it was. Colonel Malleson shows
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* Colonel Malleson's Life of Dupleix, which has been just published,
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CAPTAIN TROTTEE'S «¥AERM HASTINGS.'

* The publication, recently noticed in this place, of the " Letters,
Despatches, and other State Papers preserved in the Foreign Depart-
ment of the Government of India, 1 772-1 785," has thrown entirely new
light from the most authentic sources on the whole history of Warren
Hastings and his government of India. Captain L. J. Trotter's Warren
Hastings, a volume of the " Kulers of India " series, edited by Sir W.
Hunter (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press), is accordingly neither inop-
portune nor devoid of an adequate raison d^itre. **The present volume,"
says a brief preface, ** endeavours to exhibit for the first time the actual
work of tbat great Governor-Greneral, as reviewed from the firm stand-
point of the original records now made available to the students of
Indian history." Captain Trotter is well known as a competent and
attractive writer on Indian history, and this is not the first time that
Warren Hastings has supplied him with a theme.' — The Times.

* He has put his best work into this memoir. . . Captain Trotter's
memoir is more valuable [than Sir A. Lyall's] from a strictly historical
point of view. It contains more of the history of the period, and it
embraces the very latest information that casts light on Hastings' re-
markable career. . . His work too is of distinct literary merit, and is
worthy of a theme than which British history presents none nobler. It
is a distinct gain to the British race to be enabled, as it now may, to
count the great Governor-General among those heroes for whom it need
not blush.' — Scotsman.

' Captain Trotter has done his work well, and his volume deserves to
stand with that on Dalhousie by Sir William Hunter. Higher praise
it would be hard to give it.' — New TorJc Herald.

' This is an able book, written with candour and discrimination.' —
Leeds Mercury.

* Captain Trotter has done full justice to the fascinating story of the
splendid achievements of a great Englishman.' — Manchester Guardian.

* This neat little volume contains a brief but admirable biography of
the first Governor-General of India. The author has been fortunate in
having had access to State Papers which cover the period of the entire
rule of Warren Hastings.' — The Newcastle Chronicle.

* In preparing this sketch for " The Bulers of India," Captain
Trotter has had the advantage of consulting the " Letters, Despatches,
and other State Papers preserved in the Foreign Department of the
Government of India, 1772-1785," a period which covers the entire ad-
ministration of Warren Hastings. The present volume, therefore, may
truly claim that it '' exhibits for the first time the actual work of the
great Governor-General, as reviewed from the firm stand-point of
original records." It is a book which all must peruse who desire to be
** up to date " on the subject.' — The Globe.